Leo and Marisa: A Second Chance
by Snowblazehollyleafstar
Summary: At the bottom of the abyss, people are sent back to be reborn and start again. Lord Asriel and Mrs Coulter are sent to the world of Harry Potter. Can they right past wrongs and choose their side?
1. Prologue: The Bottom of the Abyss

Hi, welcome to the story! This has been cross-posted from AO3, where it's already forty-one chapters long. I'll update this every day that I can until it's caught up to the AO3 version. Hope you like the story and please review!

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Marisa was falling. That was nothing new about that, of course. Marisa had been falling for what felt like eternity, but as she was still alive, couldn't have been more than a few days.

Metatron had finally disintegrated into Dust a while back thanks to the golden monkey's efforts. Now it was just Marisa and the monkey and her lover's ghost.

Falling, falling, falling.

There was nothing to say: they'd said it all already. Everything had been done, it was just waiting to die and then waiting for something that would never come.

"We're doing it for Lyra," she murmered, but Lyra seemed awfully far away and they would never see her again.

And it was far too late to go back now. They had chosen this fate, they had accepted it.

They just hadn't realised quite how bad it would be.

Falling, falling, falling.

Because there was nothing to see around them, she peered down into the darkness, and there saw something that she could never have dreamed would exist.

It wasn't that exciting in ordinary terms – just a piece of grey flat featureless land – but it was the bottom of the bottomless abyss, and it was getting closer every second.

Suddenly Marisa realised what this meant. She clutched the monkey closer, and hugged him tightly, because she knew this meant he would be gone.

"Goodbye," she whispered. There was no need to say anything else.

And then they had hit the ground and Marisa was dead.

It was sudden, shocking. For one brief moment it had hurt, but now all that remained was a dull ache, a longing for her dæmon.

Marisa stood up and looked down at her body. Beside her, Lord Asriel was doing the same.

"Well," Marisa said, and then stopped because there was nothing more to say.

They looked around, staring for something other than grey nothingness, and saw that there was indeed something: an old, old creature, older than anything Marisa had ever seen.

They went up to it, for lack of anything else, and greeted it respectfully.

"You have come from the abyss?" asked the creature in a gravelly, cracked voice.

Marisa and Lord Asriel nodded.

"It is many ages since anyone has come from there… like all who fall, you are faced with a choice. Stay here, grow old like me, have immortality but never body or dæmon – or go back, have a second chance to right what you did wrong. You will start afresh, but you can never return here."

There was almost no need to speak. "We'll go back," they said at the same time.

"But if you go back it will be at the cost of your memories."

Marisa was horrified at that. Lose Lyra forever, lose everything she had ever worked towards… or stay here, in this bleak nothingness.

"Very well," she said, and so did Lord Asriel.

Then they felt themselves being drawn away by some mysterious force, to some place they knew nothing of, to begin again.


	2. Diagon Alley

"I'm bored," said Draco loudly.

Leo rolled his eyes as much as he could without moving. He couldn't move because Madam Malkin's assistant was busy adjusting his robes.

"Draco, you're always bored!" It was true: Draco was never happy except when attention was on himself. Leo wasn't such an attention-seeker, at least not always. He certainly didn't dislike attention, not by any means.

Draco sighed and said "I don't see why – "

"Oh, can you just shut up?"

Draco did. Leo knew he didn't take it personally – despite their regular disagreements, they were very close. In fact, to all intents and purposes, they were brothers.

Leo had lived with the Malfoys for ten years, ever since his mother had been sent to Azkaban. His father, the previous Lord Asriel, had died shortly before in the service of the Dark Lord. The Malfoys and the Asriels had always been friends and fellow servants of the Dark Lord, so it was only natural that Lucius and Narcissa should take on the raising of Leo.

Madam Malkin was talking to another customer, a first-year. He was small and skinny with messy black hair and green eyes. He came over and sat down on the stool next to Leo.

"Hullo," said Draco, clearly sizing him up, "Hogwarts too?"

The boy replied "Yes."

Draco said in his bored, drawling voice, "My father's next door buying my books and mother's up the street looking at wands. Then I'm – "

Leo sighed and interrupted, "Don't you think we should actually introduce ourselves before we start revealing our entire lives? I'm Lord Asriel."

Leo preferred to be known by his title, rather than his first name.

"Draco Malfoy. As I was saying, I'm going to drag them off to look at racing brooms. I don't see why first years can't have their own. I think I'll – "

"_Draco_! When will you learn some tact? You don't just tell strangers all about yourselves like that! We have no idea who he is!"

Draco glared at Leo and said defiantly to the other boy "I think I'll bully Father into getting me one and I'll smuggle it in somehow."

Leo sighed but decided it was best to concede defeat on this and let Draco make a mess of things. It really wasn't worth the effort and he might be able to talk to the boy alone.

"There you are," said the assistant, "you're done. If you'd like to go next…" she said, gesturing to Draco.

Leo stood up and Draco took his place.

"Have _you _got your own broom?" Draco asked.

"No."

"Play Quidditch at all?"

"No."

Draco clearly wasn't pleased with the answers he was getting.

"_I_ do – Father says it's a crime if I'm not picked to play for my house, and I must say, I agree. Know what house you'll be in yet?"

"No."

Draco paused to stealthily roll his eyes at Leo then continued, "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but we know we'll be in Slytherin, all our families have been – imagine being in Hufflepuff, I think I'd leave, wouldn't you?"

"Mmm."

Leo was beginning to get the impression this boy didn't know much about Hogwarts, or the wizarding world.

"I say, look at that man!" said Draco, pointing outside the window to where a huge man was standing holding two ice-creams.

"That's Hagrid," said the boy, "he works at Hogwarts."

This was surprising – he actually knew something!

"Oh, I've heard of him. He's a sort of servant, isn't he?"

Leo gritted his teeth to prevent himself from yelling at Draco, who was being an idiot. If he wanted to be friends with this boy, it might be best not to insult someone he'd clearly met and liked.

"He's the gamekeeper," said the boy, looking as if he wanted to leave quickly.

"Yes, exactly. I've heard he's a sort of _savage_ – lives in a hut in the school grounds and every now and then he gets drunk, tries to do magic and ends up setting fire to his bed."

Leo shot Draco a very hard glare.

"I think he's brilliant," said the boy coldly.

Instead of backing down and apologising, Draco said, "_Do_ you? Why is he with you? Where are your parents?"

"They're dead."

Draco said, not sounding at all sorry, "Oh, sorry. But they were _our _kind, weren't they?"

Typical Draco. Now he was going to start on one of his pure-blood rants.

"They were a witch and wizard, if that's what you mean."

"I really don't think they should let the other kind in, do you?" At this Leo tuned out. Personally, he thought the whole pure-blood thing was a load of nonsense, but unlike Draco he had some tact and didn't want to displease his adopted parents.

Madam Malkin said that the other boy was done and he left very quickly.

"_Draco_, you complete and utter _idiot_!"


	3. Lord Leo

Marisa dragged her trunk over to the nearest compartment and heaved it in before sitting down. There were other people in the compartment, but that didn't bother her too much.

"Yes, you can sit here," said one of the others sarcastically. She glanced round to look at him. He was a tall boy with dark hair. One of the others had long blond hair and the other two looked big and strong.

"Actually," said the blond-haired boy, "not necessarily."

Marisa realised that this wasn't her primary school and she would need to work on rebuilding the reputation she'd have there.

"And who gave you the right to decide where I should or should not sit?" she asked icily.

"I – I – " Marisa smiled. Clearly, this boy wasn't used to anyone talking to him like that. He'd always had things his own way. Well, so had she, ever since she was seven, and she wasn't going to let that change now.

"Look, are you pure-blood or not?"

So there was some standard by which she was being measured, and she had no idea what that was, if only because she hadn't read through all her large pile of books yet. Of course, she wasn't going to let that bother her.

"That is none of your business. Unless there is any actual reason why I shouldn't sit here, I will."

The boy frowned for a moment, then said, "Vincent, Gregory, could you teach this girl a lesson."

The two strong boys stood up and walked over to her. Marisa didn't flinch except to reach for her wand. She gripped it tightly and remembered the basic jinx she had been learning during the summer, along with many other spells. She'd double-checked the rules, and there was technically nothing to stop her from practising underage magic before starting Hogwarts.

The two boys moved closer, and pointing her wand at one of them, she whispered, "_Flipendo!"_

The boy fell back and the other looked rather nervously around before sitting back down.

"Very impressive," said the blond boy sarcastically. Marisa smiled sweetly back at him. He left her alone after that, although Marisa couldn't help noticing that when the food trolley came around and the boy bought sweets to share, she was left out.

Well, it was clear who the first victim of her campaign to re-establish her reputation would be.

Just after the others had finished their sweets, a skinny boy came in.

"Hi, Theo," said the blond boy, to which he responded, "Hello, Draco. Have you heard Harry Potter's only a few carriages down?"

Draco raised his eyebrows; clearly he had not. "Really? I think I might go and introduce myself. Coming, Leo?"

The tall boy shook his head and Draco, Vincent and Gregory left. Theo went back to his own compartment, leaving Marisa and Leo alone.

"Sorry about Draco," said Leo. "He's really awful sometimes."

"I can tell. I'll start plotting my revenge soon."

Leo smiled. "Good on you. I'd do it myself except as I live with his parents I'd probably get into awful trouble. I don't mind helping you, though."

"You live with his parents?" Marisa asked curiously. "Are you brothers?"

"In a manner of speaking. I'm adopted."

"Who are your real parents?"

"My father is dead, and my mother's… in prison."

"Really? What did she do?"

"Long story," responded Leo airily. "Anyway, I didn't catch your name?"

That was a ridiculously obvious way to change the subject, but Marisa didn't care.

"Marisa," she said, "Marisa King. And you?"

"Lord… Leo."

Marisa laughed out loud. "Lord Leo! Seriously?" Once she could speak again without being breathless from laughter, she said, "So… can you help me plot my revenge on Draco, then?"

Leo nodded and Marisa smiled triumphantly as the two leant closer together to begin plotting.


	4. The Sorting, Part One

Five minutes later, Draco, Vincent and Gregory stormed back in. Leo moved away from Marisa hastily.

"That idiotic boy doesn't know what's good for him!" Draco said loudly. Gregory, Leo noticed, seemed to have a bleeding finger.

"Who?" Leo asked. "Harry Potter?"

"Yes, it was that boy from Madam Malkin's, he went and tried to fight us and he's friends with a Weasley and the rat bit Gregory!"

Leo rolled his eyes. "I told you so. You're a bit of a hypocrite to act like that and call him idiotic."

"It's about time we got changed," said Draco, quickly changing the subject. "You are definitely leaving now, Miss Mudblood."

Marisa didn't react to the insult: either she didn't understand what it meant or she was pretending not to care. Instead she got to her feet and left, very slowly, seeming not to care at all.

As soon as she was out, the boys began stripping off and changing into their robes.

When they'd finished, they heard a voice echoing through the corridors: "We will be reaching Hogwarts in five minutes' time. Please leave your luggage on the train, it will be taken to the school separately."

The four boys stepped out into the corridor, all at least a little nervous but none of them showing it. They pushed and shoved their way out onto the platform, where they saw the man who had been with Harry Potter waving a lantern and calling "Firs' years! Firs' years over here!"

The group of about forty or fifty followed Hagrid down a slippery slope. There was a loud "Ooh!" as Hogwarts came into sight, but neither Leo nor Draco made a sound.

Soon they reached a small fleet of boats bobbing in the lake, and were told "No more'n four to a boat!"

Draco climbed into an empty one. Vincent and Gregory followed, rocking the boat heavily, but Leo hesitated a little.

"Coming, Leo?" Draco asked, but it was too late: Pansy Parkinson was already climbing in.

Leo turned away to find another boat, and saw one containing Theo and Marisa. He climbed quickly in.

Marisa smiled a little at the sight of her ally, and the boats moved forwards. No-one spoke until they reached the front door and Hagrid knocked loudly.

The door was immediately opened by a stern-looking woman who was addressed by Hagrid as Professor McGonagall. She escorted them into a small empty chamber, and gave them a speech on the Sorting, Houses, House Cup, et cetera.

Leo didn't really listen that attentively. He knew it all already. As Professor McGonagall left, he began listening in on others' conversations, until he heard a few gasps and saw a few ghosts had just walked through the wall.

Leo didn't listen to the ghosts, either. He dimly heard something about Peeves, whoever he was.

Professor McGonagall returned and led them into the Great Hall, telling them to form a line. Leo was between Draco and Marisa.

The Sorting Hat was brought out and sang its song (rather boring, Leo noted) and then Professor McGonagall began calling out the names.

"Abbot, Hannah!"

"HUFFLEPUFF!"

"Asriel, Leonard!"

Leo had momentarily forgotten that he would be called so soon. He walked forward, ignoring the curious looks – next to the Lestranges, the Asriels had been the Dark Lord's most infamous servants – and put the hat on.

It only took ten seconds before it shouted "SLYTHERIN!"


	5. The Sorting, Part Two

As soon as Marisa heard Leo being Sorted into Slytherin, she knew where she wanted to go. But she still had a long time to wait.

The next new Slytherin was Millicent Bulstrode, closely followed by Vincent Crabbe, one of Draco's minions.

Marisa didn't really care about any of the others, so she spent her time trying to guess which boy was Harry Potter.

As a Muggle-born, she didn't know that much about Harry Potter, but according to her History of Magic textbook he was famous because he'd defeated someone so scary that no-one wanted to name him, when he was only one year old.

That, to Marisa, seemed absolutely crazy. How on earth could a one-year-old do something like that? Therefore, Marisa was very intrigued by Harry Potter, and thought he would be a useful ally. She hoped he'd be in Slytherin: herself, Harry Potter and Leo would be an invincible team.

Daphne Greengrass and Draco's other minion soon joined the Slytherin table, and the line was beginning to shrink noticeably.

It wasn't long until it would be Marisa's turn, and she began to feel a little nervous. Not, of course, that she let anyone see that.

"King, Marisa!"

Marisa stepped forward calmly. Almost before she'd managed to put the Hat on, it yelled "SLYTHERIN!"

She pulled off the Hat and set it down on the stool. That was when she noticed no-one was clapping; instead, all of the Slytherins were staring at her curiously.

Leo began to applaud loudly, and then everyone turned to stare at him, instead.

Marisa thought she understood why people were acting strangely: because she was a "Mudblood". She walked over to the Slytherin table and found an empty seat between Leo and Daphne Greengrass.

The ceremony continued. Next was a boy who managed to walk off wearing the Hat (Gryffindor) followed by "MacDougal, Morag" (Ravenclaw) and then Draco Malfoy. To no-one's surprise, he was sorted into Slytherin.

He walked over to the table and sat down on Leo's other side, ignoring Marisa.

Soon after that, the name that everyone had been waiting for was called: "Potter, Harry!"

Marisa stared curiously at him. He was small and skinny, with messy dark hair and glasses, but she couldn't see any more than that before his head vanished under the Hat.

As everyone waited, all hoping he would be put into their House, the Hat paused for a minute and then yelled "GRYFFINDOR!"

Marisa sighed softly, disappointed. _Why _couldn't he have been in Slytherin?


	6. Exploding Snap, Arguments and Dreams

In the Slytherin common room, the first-years settled down. None of them wanted to go to bed yet. Theo started a round of Exploding Snap with Daphne Greengrass, and Leo decided to join in.

As Daphne dealt out the cards, he heard Draco's loud voice ringing out across the room.

"How come you're in Slytherin if you're a Mudblood?"

Leo winced a little, and glanced at Marisa, who was sitting alone in a corner. He almost got up to defend her, but then he remembered: _you live with Draco's parents, you have to go along with all this nonsense._

Marisa, anyway, didn't exactly look as if she needed someone to defend her. She stood up, eyes blazing with rage, and walked directly over to Draco.

"I am in Slytherin," she said icily, "because I am worthy of it. I might not be pure-blood, but I am cunning, as the Sorting Hat said that Slytherins are. Is there anyone who believes that I am not worthy? I'll take on any one of you."

Leo was impressed. He decided that he liked this girl. Also, there was something… familiar about her. He couldn't quite put it into words.

Draco said, "Um… err…", clearly surprised.

"Every rule has an exception, _Draco_," Marisa said. "And I am the exception to this rule."

Leo stared at her in admiration, and was promptly brought back to Earth when the pack of cards exploded in his face.

That night, Leo dreamt that he was standing at the edge of a bridge, and the bridge led to another world. There was a snow leopard at his side, but the snow leopard… was him? He didn't understand.

Nor did he understand why he was so much older than eleven years old. Or why there was a woman in his arms, or why she looked so like Marisa.

But what he did understand was that he loved this woman, whoever she was.


	7. Revenge in Potions

It was that Friday, in Potions, that Marisa got a chance to enact revenge on Draco. The Potions professor, Severus Snape, who was also the Head of Slytherin, was rather mean to Harry Potter and took a point from Gryffindor. If Marisa hadn't wanted Slytherin to win the House Cup she might have complained.

They were told to get into pairs to brew a simple potion to cure boils. Marisa had wanted to go with Leo, but he ended up with the other Slytherin boy – wasn't his name Theo? Instead, she was paired with Daphne Greengrass, who didn't utter any objection to working with a Muggle-born.

Once the potions had reached a reasonable stage, Marisa reached into her pocket and pulled out a Dr. Filibuster's Wet-Start, No-Heat Firework, kindly donated by Leo, while Daphne was stewing horned slugs.

As Snape was telling everyone to look at how well Draco had done the same, Marisa threw the firework. It landed in Draco's cauldron and there were two loud explosions.

"Potter!" called Snape immediately. "Thought you could use the explosion to prank Draco, did you? Well, you thought wrong. Fifty points from Gryffindor and a detention for you."

"But Professor – " stammered Harry Potter, "I didn't – "

"And a further five for lying. Another word, and I'll make it a hundred."

Marisa glanced around to see the effect of the explosions. Many people were covered in boils, but the worst affected was Draco, whose entire face was covered in boils. Along with many others, he walked up to the desk to receive an antidote from Snape.

Marisa felt rather uncomfortable. It was one thing to take revenge, and very satisfying too, but she didn't like an innocent person being blamed for it. Plus, the whole point of her plan was that Draco knew it was her fault.

She raised her hand.

"Yes, Miss… err…"

"Marisa King, Professor," she said in a rush, worried that if she stopped, she wouldn't be able to start again. "It wasn't Harry Potter who threw that firework. It was me."

"I see," said Snape icily. "Detention. And stay behind after class, I'd like to have a word with you."

Marisa nodded and began to focus utterly on her potion. A lot of the Slytherins were glaring at her, but she seemed to have made friends of the Gryffindors. She also noticed that Potter's detention and house points had not been revoked.

When the bell rang, everyone else filed out, leaving only Marisa and Snape in the room.

"It was not very wise of you to provoke Draco Malfoy. His family is extremely influential."

"It was not very wise of Draco Malfoy to provoke me."

"What did he do?"

"He called me a Mudblood."

For a moment, Marisa could have sworn Snape flinched. It was very odd.

"Very well. But it must not happen again. You may go."

Marisa left, very relieved.


	8. Flying

Shortly before Halloween, the Flying lessons began for first-years, and Gryffindors would be learning with Slytherins.

Leo regarded the sign on the Slytherin notice board with some trepidation. He'd been on a broom enough times to know that he never wanted to go near one if he could help it. Sadly, he didn't have a choice.

The lesson began at three-thirty. It was taught by Madame Hooch, a witch who looked a little like a hawk and who snapped at them to stand by a broomstick.

Leo, who had been moving very slowly, found himself left with the worst and most clunky broom of the lot. He sighed.

The first instruction was to put your hand above your broomstick and say "Up!"

There was a chorus of "Up!" from everyone, but only two brooms flew up into their holders' hands the first time. One was Marisa's. The other, Leo was unsurprised to see, was Harry Potter's.

Leo's stayed firmly on the ground, and didn't move at all. Everyone else got more attempts. Draco got it on his second try and so did a couple of Ravenclaws and one Hufflepuff. On the third try even Crabbe and Goyle got it.

By the fifth there were only three people left: himself and two Gryffindors, one boy and one girl. On the sixth the girl, who he remembered as being the know-it-all from Potions, got it too.

Leo tried not to seem too embarrassed as Madame Hooch began showing everyone else how to grip the broom properly, and said "Up!" He was pleasantly surprised to find that it actually came up to his hand. At last.

The next instruction they received was to push off from the ground on the count of three.

Leo reluctantly lifted one leg over his broom.

"On my whistle," said Madame Hooch, "three – two – "

That was when someone's broom went up anyway: the only boy who had hadn't been able to get his broomstick to come to his hand. Leo saw his terrified face and then the boy leaned perilously far over and fell twenty feet to the ground.

Madame Hooch announced that the boy had a broken wrist and set off to take him to the hospital wing, telling the others sternly that if they touched the brooms they would be expelled.

Draco burst out laughing the moment Madame Hooch and the boy were out of sight. "Did you see his face, the great lump?"

The other Slytherins joined in, Leo's laugh slightly faked. Marisa didn't laugh at all but stared seriously straight ahead.

One of the Gryffindors told Draco to shut up (Leo silently cheered) and Pansy Parkinson accused her of fancying a fat little cry-baby.

At that moment Draco picked something up from the grass: the Remembrall Leo remembered seeing the boy with that morning.

Harry Potter said quietly "Give that here, Malfoy," but it was too late: Draco had taken off and was hovering level with an oak tree.

The know-it-all shouted "No!" but Harry grabbed his broom and took off. "Give it here," he said, "or I'll knock you off that broom."

"Come down, Draco," Leo advised quietly.

Harry thrust his broom at Draco, who just about managed to dodge and then threw the ball to the ground and carefully descended.

Leo was impressed to see Harry diving after the ball and catching it before it hit the ground.

"HARRY POTTER!" The Deputy Headmistress was running towards them, yelling "_never_ – in all my time at Hogwarts – "

Some of the Gryffindors protested, but Professor McGonagall silenced them and told Harry Potter to come with her.

In the shocked silence that followed, Leo was the only one who noticed that Marisa had picked up the Remembrall from where Potter had dropped it and slipped it into her pocket.


	9. More Flying

The gossip was all over the school next day: Harry Potter had not been expelled, but instead made the youngest Seeker in centuries _and _given a top-of-the-range racing broom.

Marisa was, to say the least, not happy. She was currently ranting to Leo under her breath during lunch. He probably wasn't listening, but she kept going anyway.

"I can fly just as well as he can, the only reason I didn't do that was that I'm not a complete and utter _idiot_, I bet if he wasn't the Boy Who Lived he would have been expelled for that, it's just blatant favouritism…"

"Marisa," said Leo, "if you don't shut up, I'll tell someone about that Remembrall."

She stopped, took a deep breath, and then said calmly, "You noticed? I thought everyone would be too distracted to see."

"Exactly. I have enough sense to know that when everyone else is distracted is when someone who's actually competent will do something secret, so I don't let myself be distracted."

Marisa nodded. "Is that a serious blackmail attempt, or are you just joking?"

"Semi-serious. If I really wanted to blackmail you, I'd find something more important."

Marisa laughed. "I'll make sure not to give away any secrets of mine. Anyway, I thought we were allies."

"We are," Leo replied, "but that doesn't mean we can't blackmail each other."

Marisa nodded. "Too true. Now, I was wondering, could you help me with something…?"

Approximately fifteen minutes later, Marisa was perched on a rickety broom thirty feet in the air, trying not to look down as she executed a series of twists and turns.

Leo, meanwhile, was staying firmly on the ground and watching. He glanced around regularly to check that nobody was watching.

Marisa had consulted the school rules and seen that there was a ban on first-years using brooms without supervision.

What the rules didn't specifically mention was who exactly was qualified to supervise. Technically Marisa hadn't broken the rules, but she doubted any teachers would actually let her off on that count. Except, possibly, Professor Snape. Leo might have some degree of influence with him.

As she angled her broom for a steep dive, Leo glanced at his watch. "We only have five minutes before we'll be missed. We should go."

Marisa nodded reluctantly and brought her broom to the ground. "Same time tomorrow?" she asked.

"No, I don't think we should do this every day. Next week. I'd better go." And with that, Leo hurried off.


	10. Too Many Coincidences

Leo was wedged into a little corner in the Slytherin common room, between Marisa and Theo. They were all holding plates of party food, and chattering nervously amongst themselves.

"A troll?" asked Theo, worried. "That could kill someone."

Marisa smiled coldly. "Bet you a million po – Galleons Potter stops it."

Leo shrugged.

"I could probably take on a troll," said Theo. "I'm one of the oldest in my year, I turned twelve last month. When was your birthday again, Leo? I forgot."

"First of December," said Leo. "The beginning of winter."

"I thought that was the twenty-first," said Theo at the same time as Marisa gasped.

"What?" asked Leo, slightly confused.

"That's the same as mine!"

"What a coincidence!" said Theo, but Leo was beginning to have his doubts. There had been a lot of coincidences involving himself and Marisa in the last few months: the way she'd seemed so familiar, the dream he'd had, and now their shared birthdays.

There had to be some sort of connection between them – but what?

Later that evening, he wrote to the Malfoys, using the eagle owl he shared with Draco.

_Lucius, Narcissa,_

_Did you ever have any contact with a Muggle family called King? There is a rather familiar-seeming Mudblood in Slytherin._

_Your loving son,_

_Leo._

He tied it to the owl's leg and watched as it flew away into the distance. Soon, perhaps, he would find out the truth.


	11. The First Four Months

Leo and Marisa had finally begun to settle into Hogwarts. They were enjoying their classes, particularly Potions. They were both near the top of the class in that and rivalled each other intensely.

Marisa's favourite subject, however, was by a long margin Flying. She loved the sense of power and control it gave her, and the sheer exhilaration of the wind in her hair.

Leo preferred Transfiguration, which he was fairly good at. He felt that magic was the most important thing to learn.

Leo received an owl from Lucius, but it was not what he had hoped. _No,_ it said in as many words. _We did not._

They continued with the secret flying. Leo read books while he watched Marisa soar through the air.

Marisa's campaign to re-establish her reputation also continued. She never openly confessed after the Potions incident, but Slytherins weren't stupid. They worked out soon enough that when Pansy Parkinson lost her wand for a few days, when Crabbe grew absurdly long toenails, the common factor was that they had insulted Marisa a few days before.

People left her alone after that. She was no longer openly called "Mudblood" and she made a friend in Daphne Greengrass, who could see Marisa's power and decided to work with her instead of against her.

Leo found making friends a lot easier, but he had to avoid spending too much time with Marisa. In the library he spoke to Terry Boot, a Ravenclaw, and got to know him well. He began to develop two circles of friends: Slytherin blood-purists and intelligent Ravenclaws and Slytherins of all blood statuses.

Marisa sort of fell into a category of her own. He spent as much time with her as he could without making his fellow Slytherins suspicious. They plotted together and talked about everything they could think of. They exchanged knowledge: Leo telling Marisa about the Wizarding War and Marisa telling Leo about the wonders of Muggle technology.

Together they charted the passageways of Hogwarts, making careful notes in case they ever needed to escape through the halls.

And it was on one of those explorations that they made the most exciting discovery of all.


	12. The Room of Requirement

They were up on the seventh floor, and Leo was scrutinising a portrait in excruciating detail. Marisa was not so interested. It was getting close to curfew and they had already been out exploring for three hours.

"Leo," she said in her most plaintive voice, "my legs ache. Is that portrait of… dancing trolls? …really that interesting?"

"Yes," said Leo, not looking up. "I'm trying to focus here."

Marisa rolled her eyes and began to pace back and forth. _I need to rest_… she thought. As she passed the blank stretch of wall opposite, a plain door handle suddenly appeared.

"Leo," said Marisa, now quite excited, "look at this!"

Leo turned around. "How did that happen? What did you do?"

Marisa shrugged. "I walked back and forth…"

She put her hand on the handle and glanced at Leo, who nodded. Marisa turned the handle and opened the door.

Inside was a massive bed, with pillows all fluffed up and a lovely warm white duvet. And the music playing…

"_Aladdin?_" asked Marisa, a massive smile spreading over her face. "How on earth did they guess?"

Leo looked somewhat nauseated: clearly "A Whole New World" wasn't his idea of musical bliss.

Marisa saw a roaring, crackling fire making the room beautifully warm, and a pair of silky grey pyjamas neatly folded on the bed. She picked them up and was unsurprised to find that they were exactly her size.

"How did you make this happen?" asked Leo, his eyes lit up with urgency. "If we can master this room, we could do anything!"

"Thanks," said Marisa, "but world domination can wait. I need to relax." And with that, she flopped down onto the bed.

"Marisa, I'm serious!"

"Okay. I thought that I needed to rest. Now can you _let_ me rest?"

"Fine," said Leo, "Just… bear in mind you might end up disappearing."

Marisa glared at him, unsure if he was serious or not, until he went out and shut the door.

Then she rolled around until she was in a perfectly comfortable position and began singing lazily along. Bliss.


	13. World Domination? Or Just Improvement?

Leo closed the door of the room where Marisa was relaxing and then counted to ten in his head. He felt slightly thirsty, so he thought, _I need a drink_. The door handle was no longer there.

He tried pacing up and down, as Marisa had earlier. Still nothing. Then he thought _I need the room where Marisa is_, and the handle immediately appeared.

So that meant the room wouldn't work if there was someone in it… or did it only do certain things. There was one way to find out, but Marisa wasn't going to like it. He opened the door.

There was exactly the same room, Marisa still sprawled on the bed.

"You need to get out," said Leo.

"Look, I told you, I am resting. Leave me in peace."

Leo suddenly had a thought. He wasn't sure if it was right, but it might convince Marisa to leave the room. "I knew there had to be a catch somewhere!" he said triumphantly.

"What – what do you mean? What… catch?" Marisa appeared genuinely confused.

Leo smiled. "The room is a trap. It makes you stay here by fulfilling your dreams, but it keeps you here. You can't leave."

"You're making it up. Of course I can leave."

"Prove it."

"You just want me out of here so you can… whatever it is you want to do…"

Leo wasn't used to dealing with people who actually had enough of a brain to see through his tricks. He sighed. "Maybe…"

Marisa laughed a little. "So you admit it?"

"Well…" he said slowly, "I wasn't completely making it up… it's still possible…"

"Anyway, I'm not the one who's obsessed with this room. Who's the one who's trying to – "

Leo interrupted hastily. "To use its powers to…um…"

"Take over the world?"

"No, I don't want to take over the world, I want to improve it…"

"And your definition of an improved world is one you're in charge of?"

"Shut up."

"Only if you let me enjoy my room!"

Leo paused, considering. "All right, just until tonight. But I'm not the one responsible for you being out past curfew, and I'm leaving you. And tomorrow we are coming straight back here to investigate further."

Marisa nodded.

"Bye," said Leo, and walked out of the door.


	14. Scientific Investigation

It was half past seven and Marisa was fast asleep. She hadn't left the room until ten o'clock and then she'd remembered a Transfiguration assignment due tomorrow. That had taken two hours, so it had been almost one in the morning by the time she'd got to sleep.

"Wake up!" said the voice of Daphne Greengrass.

"What…" muttered Marisa and sat up slowly. She was still at least three quarters asleep.

"Lord Asriel says you need to be downstairs and ready to go in five minutes for a scientific investigation."

"Oh. That. Tell him I've only just woken up. I'll be down in… ten or fifteen."

Daphne nodded and walked downstairs. Marisa rolled out of bed and clambered to her feet.

Precisely six minutes later she was downstairs and only a third asleep.

"You're late." Leo said.

"I didn't get to sleep until one!"

"And that is your own fault. Let's go."

Without further ado, Leo marched off towards the seventh floor. Marisa sighed and followed him up.

Seven floors later, they were there.

"I'm hungry," said Marisa.

"Why don't you test out the room by asking for a meal?" suggested Leo.

As much as Marisa hated to admit it, that was a very sensible idea. She tossed her head (not styled in its usual ponytail – no time) from side to side and then began pacing back and forth, thinking _I need some food…_

Nothing happened. The door handle didn't appear.

"Interesting…" Leo muttered. "Let me try." He paced back and forth in the same way, but nothing happened.

"Try asking for a drink," he said. "That's what I did last night."

Marisa did. This time the handle appeared. Inside was a room full of cups and goblets and mugs, all filled to the brim with every liquid imaginable.

She picked up a goblet full of pumpkin juice. "Thirsty?" she asked, offering it to Leo. He shook his head, so she took a small gulp.

"Does it taste normal?" asked Leo.

"Oh," said Marisa, "I get it. You were worried it might be poisoned or drugged or something so you got me to do it because you'd rather risk my life than your own?"

"Got it in one," said Leo.

Marisa glared at him. "Yes, it does taste normal."

"Good," said Leo. "Now let's go. Bring the goblet with you."

She shrugged, but obeyed. Once they'd closed the door behind them, Leo told Marisa to take another sip of pumpkin juice.

"No," she replied, "not again. It's your turn. Otherwise I'll jinx you. And we already know it's not poisoned."

"Fine," said Leo, taking the goblet from her and cautiously sipping it. "Normal. Just like I thought. Put this out of the way."

Marisa nodded and put it down on the opposite side of the corridor.

"What now?" she asked. "Can we go and get breakfast?"

"I… think so," said Leo. "I can't think of anything else to investigate. You go if you like, I'll just make sure I don't think of anything else."

Marisa went.


	15. The First Quidditch Match

The first Quidditch match of the season, between Gryffindor and Slytherin, took place in November. Leo and Marisa sat with the other Slytherins, Draco and Marisa studiously ignoring each other.

When the match began, Potter immediately flew up high. He soon dived (Draco said that Harry had spotted some money on the ground; Leo and Marisa both ignored him) towards what Leo thought was the Snitch.

Just as he was about to catch it, Marcus Flint, the Slytherin captain, flew directly in front of him. The Gryffindors began protesting loudly and Madam Hooch called for a penalty.

"This sort of thing gives Slytherin a bad name," said Leo. "You at least shouldn't be seen to break the rules so blatantly."

Marisa nodded.

As the match continued, Potter's broom suddenly began to jerk around uncontrollably. Marisa raised her eyebrows.

"Why is this happening?"

"I think it's jinxed," said Leo.

Marisa couldn't help feeling a reluctant admiration for Potter's flying skills, even though she was sure she could have done just as well herself.

The Weasley twins flew over to Potter to try and help him onto a better broom, which did no good at all. Marcus Flint scored five times without anyone noticing.

"Who would have jinxed that broom?"

"Potter must have enemies. Servants of the – You-Know-Who."

"Or their children, out to avenge their parents." Marisa added.

Leo paused. "Like – you know – me?"

"Your parents were supporters of You-Know-Who?"

Leo nodded reluctantly. "Yeah. I thought you'd have found out by now."

"And you didn't tell me?" spat Marisa, getting to her feet. "Some friend you are!"

"I don't like to talk about it," said Leo, "I – I thought – "

Marisa rolled her eyes. "Goodbye, Lord Asriel," she said, icy emphasis on his title. "I won't be seeing you."

She stalked out. As she did so she heard a yell in Potter's voice: "I've got it! I've got the Snitch!" Gritting her teeth and thinking that she could have got to the Snitch first, she walked on.


	16. A Plan

It was the fifteenth of November: just over two weeks before Leo and Marisa's shared birthdays. Marisa still wasn't speaking to Leo, and he was missing his closest friend.

He needed to do something to make her forgive him. If he could find a truly spectacular birthday present…

Then he had a brilliant idea. It was, of course, against the rules, but rules didn't bother Leo that much. He just needed a plan…

"Draco," he said, "can I borrow your copy of _Which Broomstick?_"

Draco glanced up from his Potions assignment. "What? Err – yeah, sure. It's in my trunk."

Leo smiled. His assumption that Draco wouldn't ask any awkward questions like "Why on earth would you want to do that when you hate flying?" had been correct.

He hurried upstairs to the boys' dormitory and began fishing around in Draco's trunk until he found the magazine. He jotted down a number on a piece of parchment and then put Draco's things neatly back in.

Leo stood up and headed to the seventh floor. He had an owl to send.

Two or three days later at breakfast, an owl arrived with a large, suspiciously broomstick-shaped parcel. Professor McGonagall was at the table the moment the owl had flown off.

"Mr Asriel, is that a _broomstick?_"

"Looks like it," replied Leo. "Not sure why I've got it, though. I definitely didn't order one."

"Then how – "

"I guess it's just an administrative error. You know I hate flying, Professor, there's no way I'd order a broomstick."

"I'm afraid I'll have to confiscate it and send it back," said Professor McGonagall sternly.

"There's no need to do that, Professor," said Leo, slightly nervously. This was the biggest flaw in his plan. "I'll send it back myself as soon as breakfast has finished."

She looked at him through her glasses for a long moment, clearly trying to perceive his intentions. Finally, she said, "Very well. But if I find that you have betrayed my trust, the consequences will be severe."


	17. Early Morning Presents

On the morning of the first of December, Marisa was up at half past six. She knew it was ridiculously early, but she had a feeling a certain someone would be waiting for her.

Once she was dressed, she grabbed the bag of Zonko's tricks she'd bribed a third-year to get and walked downstairs into the common room.

As she had expected, Leo was sitting in the cosiest armchair, with a long thin parcel on his lap.

"Is that a _broomstick_?" Marisa asked, trying to control the massive grin spreading across her face.

Leo nodded.

"But it's against the – oh!" she said suddenly, remembering the day at breakfast when a broomstick had arrived for Leo, "an administrative error, indeed! I can't believe I didn't think of that before!"

She reached out her hand to take it, but Leo shook his head.

"You can only have it if you forgive me."

"That's blackmail!" said Marisa, no longer trying to stop grinning. "As a matter of fact, I was going to forgive you anyway. I got this for you as an apology." She handed him the joke bag and then reached out for the broom.

"How did you get this?" asked Leo. "I thought first-years couldn't go to Hogsmeade."

"They can't," said Marisa, "I bribed a third-year." She began pulling the paper off the broom as Leo started to inspect the tricks.

Once the paper was off, Marisa gasped. "A Nimbus 2000? How – "

"Much did it cost? Quite a lot, but it's a small price to pay for getting my ally back."

"And of course, next time you need a favour, I'll feel guilty about the broom so I'll have to do it."

"Got it in one."

"You do realise the flaw in your plan… I don't have a moral code, so I won't feel guilty!"

Leo glared at her.

"Anyway, I'd better go and hide this before anyone else spots it." Marisa picked up the broom and went back upstairs.


	18. The Perfect Birthday

As Leo lay on his bed at midnight, staring up at the green curtains, he reflected that this had been one of his best birthdays yet. In addition to the Zonko's bag, he had received a packet of Self-Shuffling cards from Draco, a large bag of sweets from Theo and an old but interesting-looking book on the history of the Dark Arts from his parents.

Marisa hadn't got quite so good a haul, but she had been sent a Muggle music player from her parents ("Those things don't work in Hogwarts!" she said slightly grumpily) and Daphne had bought her some Chocolate Frogs.

They'd still had classes, of course: Potions, Herbology and Transfiguration. They had exchanged Transfigured teapots at the end of class although neither drank much tea.

During lunch break they'd slipped out to the Quidditch pitch so Marisa could try out her new broom, which she'd said was absolutely fabulous.

They'd spent the evening in the Room of Requirement having an impromptu party. Marisa had attempted to educate Leo in the world of Muggle music (the Room had played party songs for some bizarre reason) but he'd been unimpressed.

They'd exchanged Chocolate Frog cards and played a complicated game of their own invention involving Self-Shuffling cards, Exploding Snap cards and Every-Flavour Beans at which Leo had been resoundingly thrashed.

Then once that was done, they'd attempted to prank each other using some of the Zonko's tricks but hadn't been able to catch each other unawares.

Eventually, exhausted, they'd crawled back to the common room to go to bed, tired but unbelievably happy.


	19. Time to Go Home

It was the day before students went home for the Christmas holidays. Marisa had signed up to leave almost immediately, looking forward to seeing her parents again, but Leo had hesitated. He was reluctant to leave the castle and waste time when he could be uncovering its many secrets.

Eventually, however, he had decided that family loyalty should be more important, even though he didn't care about that very much.

Marisa had sneaked up to the boys' dormitory, where Leo was packing his things. Draco, Vincent and Gregory were all still down in the common room, but Theo was also in the dorm.

"You're sitting on my robes," said Leo.

Marisa shuffled along a bit.

"Will you write to me?" she asked. "I'm pretty sure my parents will be able to cope with owls flying down the chimneys or whatever."

"I'd like to…" said Leo slowly, "but I'm pretty sure I'll be in trouble with the Malfoys if I do. They won't like it if they know that their adopted son's in communication with a Mudblood. So I'll try and write, but it's not a promise."

"Sure," said Marisa. "Thanks. By the way…" she said, somewhat awkwardly, "I got you an early Christmas present."

She pulled a plastic sachet out of her pocket and handed it to Leo. It contained three Chocolate Frogs and a packet of Every-Flavour Beans.

Leo took it with a smile. "Thanks!" he said. "I didn't think to get you an early present, but you can have a late one after Christmas."

"That's okay," said Marisa, concealing her disappointment: she knew it was ungrateful to expect a Christmas present after the Nimbus.

Leo tore open the sachet and opened the packet of Every-Flavour Beans.

"Want one?" he asked, offering it to Marisa.

She nodded and grabbed a purple bean. "What do you think?" she asked. "Blackcurrant?"

"I don't know," said Leo.

Marisa took a cautious bite, then spat it out again. "Paint!" she said through gritted teeth. "Your turn."

Leo selected a bright red bean.

"Probably blood or something," said Marisa.

Leo shook his head. "I'm not sure," he said, putting it into his mouth. "See? Strawberry!"

Marisa rolled her eyes.


	20. Leo's Christmas

"Merry Christmas!" said Narcissa Malfoy as she skipped into Draco and Leo's shared room.

"Mum," said Leo. "It's half past six in the morning. I know I'm an early bird, but Draco's still asleep. Oh, and you do realise you have tinsel in your hair?"

"Of course I do! I'm getting into the Christmas spirit!"

Leo followed his adoptive mother downstairs. The large drawing room had been completely transformed: a twenty-foot high Christmas tree stood guard at one end, covered with a sort of glittery snow. Underneath was a pile of presents almost as big as Leo was.

Sitting next to the tree, wearing a decidedly glum expression, was Lucius Malfoy.

"Hello, Dad," said Leo, going to sit down next to him. "Not enjoying Christmas?"

Lucius shrugged. "If my wife didn't have tinsel in her hair, I wouldn't mind it so much."

"Sorry for getting into the mood, you…"

"Scrooge?" suggested Leo, and then winced. Marisa had told him about _A Christmas Carol _a few weeks ago, but it was definitely not a good idea to reveal that to his parents. He was acting like Draco.

"What's a Scrooge?" asked Lucius.

"Ebenezer Scrooge is a really famous fictional character who hates Christmas."

"If he's so famous, why haven't I heard of him?" asked Lucius, giving Leo a searching look.

"I meant famous… for Muggles."

Lucius and Narcissa both raised their eyebrows.

"There was this girl who had grown up with Muggles, and she was talking about it."

"Miss King?" asked Lucius.

"How – oh, that note I sent you. Yes, it was her."

Thankfully, Leo was then interrupted by Draco, who had arrived downstairs in his black dressing gown.

"Presents?" Draco said, making a beeline for the tree. "Yippee!"


	21. Marisa's Christmas

Marisa was downstairs at five o'clock on Christmas morning. There was no sign of any presents, but that didn't surprise her: her mum always hid them so that she didn't open them all before Mum woke up.

She fingered her wand in her pocket and reflected on how annoying these underage magic laws were. It was as if they thought she was a baby, too irresponsible not to put the International Statute of Secrecy at risk.

When she and Leo took over wizarding Britain, that would be one of the first things they'd change. Of course, they'd be of age by then and might not care so much.

But for the time being, it was probably best to stay on the right side of the law, and that meant hunting for the presents manually. It shouldn't be too hard to find them: the cottage was small and Marisa knew every millimetre of it like the back of her hand.

She looked in the living room first, including the cupboards for all the blankets in the winter when it got really cold. No presents there.

Then she moved through to the kitchen. There weren't many good hiding places there, but she still searched thoroughly and found a soft square parcel in penguin wrapping paper in the cupboard for the saucepans.

There was a suspiciously book-like parcel in the washing machine, and she also found a small round package in the sink. That was probably all of them, although she wasn't certain.

She gathered up the three presents and went through to the kitchen, where she put some toast in the toaster and got out some apricot jam. She couldn't help thinking of breakfast at Hogwarts, where everything was noisy and a little chaotic.

Her mum came down at seven o'clock, by which time Marisa was on the sofa sending her friends "Merry Christmas" texts, having unwrapped the presents: a book on dancing (Marisa had been into dance for the last couple of years), a new warm jumper and a stress ball.

"Morning, lazybones," said Marisa. "I've been up two hours already." She grinned at the shocked expression on her mum's face.

At half past eight the doorbell rang. Marisa answered it. Two of her friends from primary school were standing there.

"Marisa," said Lucy, one of her former closest allies, "we need your help! The boys are thrashing us in a snowball fight!"

"Give me five minutes," said Marisa, grinning, "I need to get some layers on."


	22. A Reunion

Leo had found himself a compartment with the saner Slytherins: Theo, Daphne and Tracey Davis. They were opening Chocolate Frogs as they waited for the train to leave.

"Morgana," Theo muttered, "I've already got her. Anyone need Morgana?"

"I do," said Leo. "I've got Hengist of Woodcroft here."

"No, I've got him."

"Oh. Which ones do you need?"

"If you have Merlin or Fulbert the Fearful that would be great," Theo said.

"I've only got one Fulbert but I'm pretty sure I've got three Merlins in my trunk." Leo stood up and moved over to his trunk to get Merlin out. As he stood up, he found his eyes covered by a girl's hands.

"Guess who?" asked the girl in question teasingly.

"Hello, Marisa," said Leo, rolling his eyes and turning around. Trying to hide his overwhelming joy, he handed Merlin to Theo, who gave him Morgana.

"Anyone want Hengist of Woodcroft?" he asked. Tracey nodded. "I haven't got him yet." He handed the card in his hand to Tracey and sat down in the corner.

Marisa gave him a brief glance and then sat down on the other side as the train began to move. "How was your Christmas, Daphne?" she asked deliberately.

"Oh, it was all right," said Daphne. "Nothing too exciting. And you?"

"Fine, thanks. I figuratively murdered all the children on my street in a snowball fight. Mainly because they were too afraid of me to fight back." She grinned.

"My Christmas was just as awful as ever," announced Leo.

"Scrooge," said Marisa.

"That's actually why it was so awful. I called my dad a Scrooge, and you can imagine the awkward questions I got then. Yes, I know I'm an idiot, please don't call me one."

"Idiot," said Marisa, smiling. "Can I have a Chocolate Frog?"

"Buy your own," said Leo.

"The trolley witch isn't here."

"She will be later."

"Okay, fine. Can you loan me a Chocolate Frog and then I'll buy you one when she does arrive?"

Leo hesitated but said, "Okay," and tossed her a frog. He smiled. He had missed Marisa so much.


	23. Dragons and Hugs

Leo and Marisa were sitting together in the boys' dormitory. Leo was working on a tricky piece of Potions homework, and Marisa was helping him while practicing her Levitation Charms.

There was a clattering on the stairs.

"Draco!" said Leo. Marisa flung herself onto Leo's bed and pulled the curtains shut. She waited, heart pounding, expecting the curtain to be flung aside at any moment.

"What is it?" asked Leo's voice.

"Hagrid's got a dragon – he's got a dragon and Potter's moving it on Saturday!"

"And? Are you going to tell a teacher or confront Potter or what?"

Silence. Then Draco said: "I'm going to catch him at it and I'm going to drag him to the Headmaster. Then he'll get expelled!"

"Don't you think it might be a good idea to just tell a teacher now? You're running quite a big risk," said Leo. Marisa rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, Leo! You're so cautious you never get anything done!" Marisa heard loud footsteps – apparently Draco was storming off.

"Fine! Just don't blame me when you get detention!" said Leo.

There was silence for a few moments, and then Leo said quietly, "Marisa?"

"No, I fell into a black hole and have been transported to an alternate reality in which you don't exist and my life at Hogwarts is completely awful."

Leo ripped back the curtain. "Stop being silly. Did… did you really… just say that?"

"Of course I did, you idiot. And it's true, too." She smiled broadly. "I mean, without you I'd fail Transfiguration, and History of Magic."

"Yeah," Leo admitted, "but you're one of the best in the class at Potions and you're as good as Potter at Flying and you're better than me at Charms..."

"Oh, shut up," said Marisa, and hugged him.


	24. Conversations and Dreams

Leo was fast asleep and dreaming of strange monsters when he heard footsteps running up the stairs. He opened one eye, heart pounding, his mind still in the dream-world.

"Who's there?" he said quietly and urgently.

"It's me, Draco. I got detention but so did Potter and his friends and they lost a hundred and fifty points for Gryffindor!"

The triumph was still evident on Draco's face. Leo rolled his eyes. "Very good," he said, "but it's three o'clock in the morning. People are trying to sleep."

"Wassat?" asked Theo's sleepy voice.

"My point exactly," said Leo, rolling over. Meanwhile Draco was explaining the events of that night to Theo, who said: "And why couldn't you have told me this at a sensible time?"

As he drifted effortlessly back into his dream, he thought that it was a good point that Thorold was making…

_"__I can't stay long," said Marisa regretfully. "Edward will be wondering where I am."_

_Leo felt the familiar surge of jealousy as he thought of Marisa's husband. What had that ridiculous politician ever done to deserve Marisa? Stelmaria waved her tail indignantly, sharing his thoughts._

_"__Why do you care about him?" he asked suddenly. "What is so important about him that you'd – marry him?"_

_Marisa laughed as the golden monkey jumped down from her shoulder and walked over to Stelmaria. "Of course I don't care about him," she said. "He's a politician, Asriel!"_

_"__So am I," Leo remarked. "You could have – "_

_"__I hadn't met you then," Marisa interrupted, "and I was worried I'd miss my chance."_

_"__You could never grow old, Marisa," Leo said._

_"__Time takes its toll on everyone," responded Marisa with a teasing smile. "Even me. And you – is that a grey hair I can see?"_

_"__Yes," said Leo, "but I am about twenty years older than you, to be fair."_

_Marisa rolled her eyes. "Enough idle chitchat," she said, smiling broadly and stepping towards Leo._

_Leo nodded and gently wrapped his arms around her._

_"__Leo," she said gently. "Leo."_

_His name began to echo through the fog that surrounded them. _

_"__Leo!"_

_"__Leo!"_

_Marisa looked up at him fondly and then carefully disengaged his arms. Almost as soon as she had she was dissolving into the fog, becoming part of it._

_"__Marisa," muttered Leo, feeling dreadfully alone. Even Stelmaria had abandoned him._

"Leo!"

His eyes flew open. "What?"

"It's half past eight. You need to get breakfast or you'll miss your first class!" It was Theo.

"Oh," said Leo. "Right. Yeah."


	25. Breakfast at the Slytherin Table

That morning at breakfast, when Draco wasn't looking, Leo hissed to Marisa, "Hey, I had a dream about you."

"What?" asked Marisa.

"We were adults and we were… flirting but you were married to someone else and you had this golden monkey…"

Marisa gasped. "I don't know what you're talking about, but I have this really strange feeling like I know what happened… I don't, of course, but…"

Leo nodded. "I know what you mean. It just felt so realistic I could have sworn it actually happened."

He grabbed a slice of toast and began to butter it. Draco was looking at him quite oddly, so he said quickly, "Hey, Theo, what classes have we got today?"

"Herbology," said Theo, giving his friend a meaningful look. "With the Ravenclaws."

"We'll have to be on good form to get any points then. You're the expert, we're relying on you!"

"Oh, come on," said Draco lazily, "since Potter lost those points it's been no contest!"

"Ravenclaw aren't that far behind," Leo said, "we should be careful."

"We've got Professor Snape on our side. Even if he does give most of the points to a…" he paused meaningfully, glaring at Marisa, "…_muggle-born_."

"He gives me the points because I deserve them!" said Marisa hotly.

Leo smiled, relieved that he had managed to resist the temptation to defend her. She was quite capable of defending herself.

She shot him a look and said "Could you pass the orange juice, please?"

Leo grabbed the heavy jug and carefully passed it over to her.

Just then Tracey Davis rushed into the room and plonked herself down next to Leo. "Hey," she said, "sorry, I overslept."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "You always oversleep, Tracey! Someone should get you an alarm clock!"

"I asked Pansy to wake me up," Tracey protested, "it's not my fault that she forgot!"

"It is," Leo remarked, "because you know how unreliable Pansy is."

"Hey!" said Pansy. "Take that back!"

"I will not," said Leo. "It's true."

Theo snorted. "Just because it's true, Leo, doesn't mean you have to say it. Would you… would you tell Professor Snape his hair is greasy to his face?"

"Yes, if he asked."

"And do you think you'd get detention if you did that?"

"If I did then I would know that Professor Snape is a hypocrite. He wanted an honest answer and I gave him one."

"Why are you calling me a hypocrite?"

Leo glanced up to see Professor Snape himself staring at him. "We were speaking hypothetically," he explained quickly.

Professor Snape made a non-committal murmur and walked over to the staff table.

"You see!" said Theo triumphantly.

"I won't deny that Professor Snape is a hypocrite, but that's not the question he asked." He shoved the last bite of toast into his mouth. "Right, I'd better go. Library calls." He got to his feet, grabbed his bag and walked out, ignoring Draco, who was calling him a workaholic.


	26. Revision and Ranting

There was only a week before exams. Leo had made a study timetable and was trying to convince his friends to stick with it. So far, they had a small study group: Leo, Theo, Tracey, Marisa and Terry Boot.

The group met in the library every Monday evening and each helped each other with the subject they were best at: Marisa gave everyone tips for Potions, Leo constantly reminded everyone of the date of the Battle of Gringotts or when Uric the Oddball was born, Theo invented mnemonics for dangerous plants, Terry tested the group on the wand movements for transfigurations, and Tracey helped everyone remember planets and stars.

Marisa was somewhat scathing about Astronomy: she said it was ridiculously basic by Muggle standards. Leo was somewhat surprised when she told the group that Muggles had been to the moon. It made him feel ridiculous: how could Muggles have done that when wizards had never even dreamed of it?

This particular evening everyone had brought along a homework assignment or two and they were all writing together. Leo was working on an essay for Professor Sprout, occasionally checking with Theo for a piece of information, while Marisa was rehearsing wand movements with help from Terry.

"Hey," said Draco's voice.

Leo glanced up, startled.

"What are you doing, studying with _her_?" Draco asked, looking at Marisa as if she was a piece of dirt on his shoe.

"I'm in a study group of which she happens to also be a member. I am prepared to tolerate her."

Draco looked slightly displeased with that answer.

"Careful, now," said Marisa, glancing up from her careful movements. "Wouldn't want to find Butober pus in your bed, would you?" She smiled sweetly, giving Draco her most wide-eyed, innocent look.

"If you do that, I'll tell a teacher," said Draco.

"Did I say I would?" asked Marisa. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Leo fought the urge to laugh at Draco's outraged and confused expression. "Anyway," he said pointedly, "have you come to join in our session?"

Draco shook his head. "Just wanted to let you know they've scheduled my detention with Potter, Weasley and Longbottom."

"What are you doing?" asked Leo, only mildly interested. He had forgotten what he had been going to write next in his essay and was annoyed by this distraction.

"Dunno," said Draco, shrugging, "but it's eleven o'clock tonight."

Leo raised his eyebrows. "What are you going to be doing at that time?" he asked.

"I know," said Draco with an annoyed look, "you'd think they could schedule it at a reasonable time!"

"Well, to be fair, you did break school rules. Now if you don't mind, I have an essay to finish by tomorrow."

Draco glared at Leo and stormed off.

Leo had a thought and called after him, "And don't wake me up when you come in to rant!"


	27. Breakfast Discussions

Draco didn't wake him up. It was eight o'clock that morning when Leo and the other Slytherins heard what had happened.

"They sent us to the _Forbidden Forest_!" he announced in a lowered voice, leaning across the table. "To look for dead unicorns!"

"Unicorns?" asked Leo, raising his eyebrows. "Why are they dead?"

"Something's been killing them," Draco said. "Something completely and utterly terrifying."

"And they sent _first-years_ to deal with this?"

"We did have Hagrid and his dog," Draco added.

"Still – that's more or less completely in – well, Filch hates students and Hagrid is convinced that all animals are harmless and friendly. I'd better make sure I don't get any detentions any time soon. So, did this thing kill you? What even was it?"

"It was a… cloak. Just a thing in a cloak dragging itself over the ground. I… retreated to see what would happen, and it went for Potter. He somehow escaped, don't ask me how – "

"His magical Boy-Who-Lived luck," Marisa interjected. "How many lives has that boy got?"

Leo shrugged. He was genuinely curious about what was killing unicorns but as he actually had some common sense, he had no intention of going into the Forest to find out, at least not until he was at least five years older.

"Interesting," he said thoughtfully and took a large bite of pancake. "Anyone got any ideas?"

No-one had. Daphne mentioned something to do with "Black Shades" but Leo was pretty sure that was just a scary story. They discussed it all through the meal but got nowhere. The only plausible suggestion was Theo's idea that it could be a Lethifold. Eventually the group broke up to get ready for their next classes.


	28. Flying to Calm Nerves

Marisa woke up bright and early on Monday morning, ready for the exams. She ate a large bowl of porridge despite having little appetite. As it was half past six in the morning, Leo and Marisa were safe from interruption and could talk freely.

"Nervous?" asked Leo.

"You bet," replied Marisa.

"Me too," said Leo. "I think I might fail Charms."

"I know I'll fail History of Magic," Marisa responded. "I can never remember the dates of anything." She paused before saying, "Do you mind if we – well, I – go flying? It might help calm me down."

"Okay," said Leo, "just let me grab a textbook so I can do some revision while we're at it." He shoved the last bite of toast into his mouth and got to his feet. They walked back to the common room together and then crept up to their dormitories. Marisa retrieved her Nimbus and Leo grabbed _The Standard Book of Spells, Grade One._

That done, they set off to the Quidditch pitch. They were lucky enough to avoid being seen. Once there, Marisa swung her leg over her broom. "Ready?" she asked.

"Whenever you are," said Leo, turning to page forty-two and beginning to read.

Marisa pushed off from the ground and began to loop around the Quidditch pitch, going faster with each lap. Soon the wind was rushing through her hair, ruining the neat plaits she'd spent five minutes sorting out. She didn't care, though.

There was no better feeling than soaring through the air with nothing but her and her broom and the roaring wind. Up here she was certain that she was a better flyer than anyone in her year and that she had no reason to be jealous of Harry Potter. She was certain that she would pass all of her exams with flying colours. And she was completely in control of everything.


	29. Exams

Approximately four hours later, the exams began. The first subject was Charms, in which Professor Flitwick asked them to make a pineapple tap-dance across the desk. Marisa bit back a sarcastic remark regarding whether tap-dancing pineapples were really useful or important.

She managed reasonably well with it, although the pineapple fell off the other side of the desk. The group met in the common room afterwards to discuss how it had gone: Daphne had done perfectly, Leo had made it waltz, Theo had only made it spin around, and Tracey, who was rather inept at Charms to put it mildly, had done nothing at all.

Next up was Transfiguration. Professor McGonagall asked the students to turn a mouse into a snuffbox. Leo's snuffbox was perfectly formed but not very aesthetically pleasing. Marisa's was beautiful but still had whiskers, as did Tracey's. Theo's had a tail as well as whiskers and Daphne's still had fur.

In Potions Marisa was easily the best of the group. Her Forgetfulness Potion was almost perfect. She'd even managed to slip a vial into her pocket: who knew when it could come in handy?

Leo's potion was at least a vague impression of the right colour. Daphne had forgotten the instructions and as such floundered abysmally. Theo's was slightly the wrong shade and Tracey's was a congealed mess.

The final exam was History of Magic. Once that was done the group had a mini-party to celebrate and discussed how they'd done. Marisa was pretty sure she'd failed, as was Daphne. Theo thought he might just have scraped a pass and Tracey wasn't sure. Leo was confident that he was one of the best in the class.

"Anyone for Exploding Snap?" asked Theo.

"Sure," said Leo. "Why not."

Theo began to deal the cards. Marisa couldn't resist aiming to make the pack explode in Leo's face, but she failed in that. Instead Leo beat her at her own game.

Marisa laughed. "Fine," she said. "You win. I'll get you next time, though!"

"Not if I have anything to do with it!" Leo replied, grinning.


	30. The Leaving Feast

Just to be clear, my views are not the same as my characters'.

* * *

It was time for the Leaving Feast at last. The first-year Slytherins were gathered around one end of the table, all grinning.

"We've won the House Cup!" said Draco triumphantly.

"The year technically isn't over yet," pointed out Leo.

"Oh, come on, it's not as if anyone's going to overtake us, is it?"

"Well, no, not realistically, but it's theoretically possible."

Draco rolled his eyes as Professor Dumbledore got to his feet to announce the results of the House Cup. Leo didn't listen to the exact numbers, but Slytherin were leading by a long way. Draco banged his goblet up and down on the table.

"Yes, yes, well done Slytherin. However, I have a few last-minute points to give out."

Leo and Marisa shared a nervous glance. Surely it couldn't be enough to take the Cup away from Slytherin?

"Firstly, to Ronald Weasley, for the best-played game of chess that Hogwarts has seen in fifty years, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

The Gryffindor table cheered.

"_First_?" mouthed Draco to Leo across the table.

"Secondly, to Hermione Granger, for cool logic in the face of fire, I award Gryffindor house fifty points."

Marisa was saying something, but whatever it was, it was muffled by the sound of the Gryffindors going absolutely wild.

"How many?" asked Theo briefly. Leo knew at once what he meant. "We're still sixty up. It's all right."

"Thirdly," said Professor Dumbledore when the noise had died down, "for sheer courage and daring, I award sixty points to Harry Potter."

"Oh," said Leo somewhat sheepishly. The noise from the Gryffindor table was so loud that no-one could hear themselves think.

Professor Dumbledore raised his hand for silence. "There are all kinds of courage," he said. "It takes courage to stand up to your enemies, but it also takes courage to stand up to your friends."

The Slytherins were shooting puzzled looks at each other, trying to work out what Professor Dumbledore was up to.

"I therefore award ten points to Neville Longbottom."

Shouting, screaming, everyone jumping to their feet. Outraged faces all around the Slytherin table. Draco screaming "_What?"_ Marisa catching Leo's eye, the silent message she sent him: there would be ranting later, once it was quiet and they were alone.

Leo was angry. It was completely unjust that Gryffindor should overtake Slytherin just like that, no matter what heroics they had performed. The house point system was designed to reward hard work, not heroics. Then again, if it was really fair that would mean Professor Snape couldn't be so biased and Ravenclaw would probably win.

Dumbledore magically changed the flags behind the table from green and silver to red and gold and silence fell. Then everyone began to talk at once. Draco began to rant, something about Dumbledore's blatant favouritism.

"Shut up," said Leo, shovelling some spaghetti and meatballs onto his plate, "I'm hungry."


	31. The End of the Year

All of the Slytherins were in one compartment for the train ride home, which meant that Leo and Marisa had to studiously ignore each other for the entire trip and could exchange no more than glances.

They exchanged Chocolate Frogs as well. Draco finally got hold of an Albus Dumbledore card, although he did make a snide remark about Muggle-lovers not deserving to be on the cards. They also exchanged their exam results: everyone had passed with good marks and Leo was pleased to find he'd come second to Hermione Granger.

Marisa was curled up in a corner, humming to herself as she nibbled at a frog. She looked tense and unhappy. Leo didn't like to say anything but he was quite worried about her.

"Hasn't been a bad year, has it?" he said to the group at large.

"No," replied Theo, "not bad at all. Shame about the Cup, but I suppose we'll just have to work harder next year."

"Yeah, if we work hard enough Dumbledore can do what he likes and we'll still win." Leo slipped his third chocolate frog into his mouth. He should probably stop there or he'd end up on a sugar high.

"We can't work much harder than we did this year," complained Tracey. "I was exhausted by the end of exams!"

"Well," said Draco, "I'm going to be Slytherin Seeker next year so I'll earn more points than you all put together."

Marisa shot him a glare and said coldly "I think not."

"Oh, you do, do you? What makes you think that?"

"I will be Seeker," said Marisa, "because I am the best flyer." She stared at him calmly, as if daring him to object.

As usual during confrontation between Marisa and Draco, Leo didn't know whose side to take. He wanted to support Marisa, but he knew that would have serious consequences. On the other hand, he simply couldn't help Draco against his closest ally.

So, also as usual, he remained neutral and said nothing. He knew that approach wouldn't work indefinitely but it was good enough for now.

"You're the best flyer?" asked Draco, outraged. "You've barely been on a broom in your life!"

Leo objected, but silently. It wasn't his choice to reveal that Marisa had actually been flying more or less every week for the past nine months.

"What?" she said flatly. "You mean like Potter, who's won two Quidditch matches for his house?"

"That's different," spat Draco.

"How so?" Marisa enquired, seeming almost genuinely interested.

"I – it just is!"

"That sounds suspiciously as if you can't think of any reason why it's different," replied Marisa.

Despite himself, Leo found himself grinning. He reached for another Frog to hide his amusement. One more couldn't hurt.

"Mudblood," said Draco, giving Marisa a glare.

"In other words," she replied, smiling, "I win." She flicked her Chocolate Frog wrapper at him. "And I've told you before. Don't call me that." Her eyes glittered. Everyone could read the unspoken threat they contained.

Draco was thoroughly beaten. "Whatever," he snapped. "Anyone want Wendelin the Weird?"

Blaise Zabini raised his hand. "I've been looking for her for ages!" he said triumphantly. "I have about ten of Cliodna if you need her."

Draco didn't, but Tracey Davis did, so they agreed a three-way swap in which Draco got Valentine Hawksworth from Tracey. Marisa offered to trade Pansy Parkinson her Rowena Ravenclaw card for Uric the Oddball but was declined.

And so the ride continued.

Several hours later, the train arrived at King's Cross Station. Leo had lost two rounds of Exploding Snap and Marisa had won Solitaire four times and was slightly sick after eating too many sweets.

"Come on," said Draco, grabbing his trunk and starting to heave it out of the compartment. "Let's go."

Leo hung back a little, though, until only himself and Marisa remained.

"Well," he said awkwardly, "see you next year. I hope you do become Seeker. You'll be great at it."

"Thanks," replied Marisa, smiling as she heaved her trunk out onto the platform. "Am I still allowed to use magic? Because levitating this trunk doesn't seem like a bad idea."

"I… don't actually know. I think so. Just do it if you like."

Marisa nodded. "_Wingardium Leviosa_," she said, pointing her wand at the trunk. It lifted a few millimetres off the ground. "See you next year!" she called, waving her free hand.

"Bye," said Leo as he dragged his own trunk towards where Draco was waiting with his parents.


	32. The Snow Leopards

There was about a week left of the summer holidays, and Leo was back in his usual spot: the library. The Malfoys had many, many ancient tomes, most of which were Dark in nature, and Leo had read through all of them in the past ten years.

Of course, he hadn't actually _used_ any of the spells in there, nearly all of which were far beyond a first- or second-year's level, but it was best to know about that sort of thing. Just in case.

Right now, on the other hand, Leo wasn't reading any book. Instead he was writing at speed on a piece of parchment.

_Basic defensive magic – Disarming? Full Body-Bind?_ Those were usually offensive spells, but Leo was a firm subscriber to the theory that the best form of defence was offence.

_First years only – Slytherins and Ravenclaws – Puffs and Gryffs too nice/stupid/reckless. Usual gang – Marisa, Theo, Tracey, Daphne… maybe Blaise? Terry, definitely. Get him to speak to the other eagles._

But what the group really needed was a name.

"Leo!"

Leo heard his not-quite-brother's voice and hastily rolled up the parchment. "Yes, Draco?"

"Need some help with my homework. History of Magic."

"Nope. I only help my study partners."

"Can I be your study partner, then?"

"If you can tolerate a muggle-born enough to be in the same room as them without making any sarcastic comments, then yes."

"I'm afraid your Mudblood won't be around much longer after this year."

Leo, despite himself, flinched. He was able to control his reaction just enough to avoid arousing suspicion and asked cautiously, "What do you mean?"

"Well, Dad just told me he's done something that's going to kill Mudbloods."

Leo blinked. "That's a bit… extreme, isn't it?" Mentally, he added _And I'd like to see the thing that'll take on Marisa…_ That was when the idea hit him. The perfect name.

Draco shrugged. "Anyway, can you help me with my homework?"

"Not now," replied Leo, "I'm doing something else."

"Fine," said Draco, glaring at Leo. "See you later."

Once Draco had gone, Leo carefully copied out his scribbled ideas onto a fresh piece of parchment. At the top, triple-underlined, he wrote _The Snow Leopards_.

Then he hurried off. He had an owl to send.


	33. A Message from Leo

Marisa was bored to death. She had forgotten how used she was to magic, to munching a Chocolate Frog whenever she was peckish, to having… not friends exactly, but allies, equals, people she could plot with who would actually keep up with her.

And, of course, she also missed a certain scientifically-minded Slytherin. Currently she was sitting at her computer playing video games listlessly. She was thrashing everyone else on her server: so far, she'd managed sixteen kills and those who had got away were far too terrified of her speedy moves and killer blows to come back for more.

She watched as a ridiculously small cat avatar calling itself "Lioness" came up to her and launched a water attack. Marisa's avatar, a monkey, was weak to water but her health bar was so vast it barely made any difference. She pounded a couple of keys and launched a blisteringly strong fireball at "Lioness".

She glanced at the game chat as she waited for another victim to come her way and saw Lioness saying "Queen Asriel is so OP! She got me in one blow!"

"Epic powers," typed Marisa back, grinning.

She suddenly spotted a decent-sized player, "Lulu" who was apparently tenth on the leaderboard, and was coming her way. As she was about to launch an earth attack, the shark's biggest weakness, she heard her mother's voice.

"Marisa, why is there an owl knocking at the window?"

Marisa sighed and hit the Pause button, then dashed downstairs to open the window and let the owl in. "Wizard stuff," she said, "don't worry about it".

Her heart leapt as she looked at the letter the owl gripped in its talons, addressed in Leo's handwriting. She untied it from the owl's leg and shut the window just in case she needed to send a reply.

_Marisa,_

_I need a favour. Could you possibly use your Muggle technology to make about twenty of the enclosed flyer? Make them as professional as you can._

_Love, Leo._

_P.S. I was thinking of giving us feline code names. How does "Lioness" sound?_

_P.P.S. Don't reply, for obvious reasons. Give me the flyers on the Express. _

Marisa grinned as she opened the window to release the owl. Leo needed her help. Suddenly the magical world didn't seem all that far away after all.


	34. Back to Hogwarts

Leo and Draco dragged their trunks along Platform Nine and Three-Quarters, looking for their respective groups of friends. Draco found Vincent, Gregory, Pansy, Millicent and Blaise about halfway along, but Leo had to walk nearly the entire distance before he found Theo, Tracey, Daphne and of course Marisa.

"Hey guys!"

"And girls," said Marisa reproachfully as Leo dragged his trunk into the compartment.

"Have you got the flyers?" he asked.

Marisa nodded and handed them to him.

"What flyers?" asked Tracey.

Ignoring her, Leo glanced through them. Marisa had done a good job: they showed all of the essential information.

"These," he said. "Here. Pass them round."

He handed some out to Tracey, Theo and Daphne. "I'm going to find the eagles, give them some copies. See you soon!"

"Oh, come on," Marisa protested, "won't you sit with us for five minutes?"

Leo shook his head. "Later. Stuff to do."

She glared at him as he walked into the next compartment, in which Terry was sitting with Morag McDougal, Mandy Brocklehurst and Roger Malone.

"Hi," he said, slightly nervously. "I'm starting a new club and I wondered if any of you would be interested in joining?" He handed Terry a few copies of the leaflet.

"Looks like fun," Terry replied.

"Could you stick one of these on your notice board?" asked Leo. "That way the first years can see it too. I would speak to them now, except I don't know who the Ravenclaws and Slytherins are yet."

Terry nodded. "Sure. See you around."

Leo smiled and walked back into his own compartment.

"There we are. Now I can relax." He sat down in the one remaining seat, next to Tracey. "So, how's your summer been?" he asked.

"Boring, really," replied Marisa. "I spent most of it thrashing everyone unfortunate enough to be on my videogame servers."

"What's a video game?" asked Theo, and Marisa launched into an explanation, which didn't get very far as none of them understood terms like "computer" or "keyboard". Eventually she resorted to: "It's a game you play in virtual space."

"What?"

"How?"

"Why don't we have things like that?"

Marisa shrugged. "Well, the only reason I see that you don't is that it doesn't work in Hogwarts and your parents hate Muggles – once we're grown up there'll be nothing at all to stop us!"

She smiled broadly.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Anyone else do anything interesting?"

No-one had, so Daphne pulled out a pack of cards and they began to play Exploding Snap.

"Marisa," Leo said, bored of Exploding Snap after his sixth loss, "want to play wizard chess?"

Marisa nodded. "I've never played before," she said cautiously, "so I probably won't be much good. It's just like Muggle chess, right?"

"Sort of. Have you got your own pieces?"

"No."

"I can lend you some," said Daphne, "let me get them."

Leo set up the board while Daphne fetched Marisa's pieces. She was white and he was black.

"White starts," said Leo.

"Okay," said Marisa, and picked up a pawn.

"That's not how you do it," said Leo, "you have to tell them where to go!"

"Right…" said Marisa, slightly bewildered. She put the pawn down again. "Okay. Pawn to E5." The pawn she had just put down moved forward.

Marisa soon found herself overwhelmed: Leo was very, very good at wizard chess.

"Check."

"Oh, come on! Give me a chance!" She paused, thinking. "Ah ha!" she said suddenly, spotting a way out of the situation. "Bishop to C6." She looked at Leo smugly as his offending rook was wrestled off the board by her bishop.

He looked back even more smugly. "Queen to A3. Checkmate."

"How – what – no way! That is not fair!"

"Did I cheat? Did I break the rules?"

"Well, no, but you have had twelve years of experience of this game…"

"True, I suppose. You'd better get practicing if you ever want to beat me!"

Marisa glared at Leo and they descended into their usual bickering.


	35. Conversations and Duelling

That evening in the Slytherin common room, the group split up. Tracey was tired and went to get an early night, while Theo and Daphne continued their earlier Exploding Snap tournament.

"You joining us, Leo?" asked Theo.

"No, I was thinking of going…" he glanced at Marisa, "somewhere else."

Marisa picked up on his hidden meaning immediately and followed him out of the common room and seven floors up. They narrowly avoided Filch by slipping down a secret passageway on the fourth floor and eventually, nerves on edge, they reached the picture of Barnabas the Barmy.

_We need a place to relax and talk… _Marisa thought as she paced back and forth until the door handle appeared in the wall. Then she grabbed it and pulled it outwards.

"Come on in," she said, gesturing theatrically to the door.

"Ladies first," replied Leo, making the same gesture.

Marisa rolled her eyes. "No, after you!"

"Oh, for goodness' sake, this is pathetic!" said Leo and went through the door.

Marisa followed him through and saw two massive beanbags, one green and one silver. Smiling, she flopped down on the green one and Leo claimed the silver.

"So," asked Leo, "anything happen?"

"Nothing I haven't already told you."

"Any thoughts on codenames? I mean, I'm obviously Snow Leopard – "

"Why?"

"Because I like the animal, and also because I've had a couple of dreams with one in."

"Oh."

"I was thinking of Lioness for you, because of your hair. How does that sound?"

"Mm… it's alright, but not really me. I prefer to work alone. Can I be Tigress instead?"

"I like the sound of that," said Leo. "My little tigress."

Marisa curled her fingers into claws and raked the air playfully. "I'm not your tigress," she said, glaring at him, "and I'm not a _tame_ cat!"

The reference was lost on Leo, who of course knew no Muggle literature. Marisa smirked.

"Draco…" said Leo suddenly, then hesitated.

"What about your idiotic adopted brother?"

"He said something funny…"

"Just spit it out, won't you!"

"He said… you wouldn't be around much longer. Because my – his dad had done something that was going to kill Muggle-borns."

Marisa raised one eyebrow. "Really? In _Hogwarts?_ Because that doesn't exactly seem very likely!"

"I don't know the details. I don't think Draco did."

"Well," said Marisa, "I'd like to see the thing that could stop me."

"My thoughts exactly," said Leo with a slight smile. "Especially with me backing you up."

"I do not need your help," Marisa insisted, aiming a playful blow with her left hand.

Leo ducked and then stood up, aiming a Jelly-Legs Jinx at Marisa, who wobbled as her legs gave out beneath her.

She drew her wand and hesitated before twisting it in the shape of a leaf. "_Rictumsempra!_"

Leo tried to dodge but was too slow: Marisa's Tickling Charm hit him directly in the stomach. He burst out laughing as he collapsed to the ground. "No – " he gasped between ridiculous giggles. "Stop – "

Marisa smirked. "Do you concede?" she asked, keeping her wand firmly trained on Leo.

Leo hesitated, laughing. He looked about to admit defeat, but then he grabbed his wand from where he'd dropped it and managed to choke out: "_Melofors!_"

Marisa gasped. She couldn't see anything except orange and the air around her smelt of pumpkin. Her entire head had been encased in a pumpkin.

She couldn't move her wand or the Tickling Charm would be dispelled, so she reached up with her left hand and lifted it off her head.

"_Locomotor Mortis!"_

Still preoccupied with the pumpkin, Marisa was unable to dodge Leo's Leg-Locker Curse and her legs slapped together. Furious now, she threw the pumpkin at him with all the force that she could muster.

He rolled out of the way and Marisa kept her wand firmly trained on him. She wouldn't be able to dodge without the use of her legs if he threw another curse at her, which meant she had to do something quickly.

Taking a deep breath, she dispelled her Tickling Charm and immediately yelled "_Petrificus Totalus!"_ It was extremely clunky, yes, but it was the only spell she knew that could stop Leo completely and certainly.

His eyes widened and he tried to avoid her spell, but was too late: it hit him and his limbs snapped together.

"I win!" said Marisa triumphantly. That was when she remembered that she didn't actually know the counter-charm.


	36. Gilderoy Lockhart

The next day, early in the morning, was the first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson with new teacher Gilderoy Lockhart. Leo took a dislike to him from the start; as he said to Marisa, "A man who spends that much time looking after his hair is clearly not the best teacher." (She replied, teasingly, "By that logic Professor Snape is the best teacher ever!)

Professor Lockhart was, it turned out, a completely useless teacher. He began by handing out a "little quiz" which was thirty minutes long, contained fifty-four questions and was all about him, questions ranging from "What is Gilderoy Lockhart's favourite colour?" to "How many times has Gilderoy Lockhart won Witch Weekly's Most Charming Smile Award?"

Marisa, disguising her horror and shock, answered as fully as she could. She hated Lockhart immediately, but was determined to disguise her hatred. It would be a good exercise.

Half an hour later, the class turned their test papers in and sat in silence while Lockhart marked them.

Then he stood up. "Some of you really need to read _Gadding with Ghouls _again – I mentioned there that my favourite colour is lilac, and I stated in _Voyages with Vampires _that my ideal birthday gift would be harmony between all magical and non-magical people. No-one got all questions correct, but the highest scorer, with forty-five out of fifty-four, is Marisa King. Congratulations, Marisa!"

She nodded, managing a plausible fakery of shyness and embarrassment and disguising the horrible sick feeling in her stomach.

"Now," said Lockhart, "I thought I'd give you all a little bit of practical experience, so I've brought some creatures along for you." He gestured dramatically to the cage on the desk, covered by a cloth, and pulled it off with a flourish. Inside were fiercely chattering, squabbling… blue things, each a few inches high and talking in a shrill, high-pitched voice.

"Yes," said Lockhart, "_freshly caught Cornish pixies!_"

Leo rolled his eyes.

"Let's see what you make of them, then!" said Lockhart, and opened the cage.

Instantly chaos spread throughout the classroom. A group of pixies flew towards Pansy Parkinson, who screeched almost as annoyingly as the pixies themselves, and tried to lift her up into the air. She offered barely any resistance, allowing one of them to seize her wand.

One or two flew towards Leo, who said "Nope," and drew his wand. He hesitated for a moment, trying to work out the best spell to use on them, and then settled on the Freezing Charm.

It worked surprisingly well, so he began using the Charm on as many pixies as he could. Soon others picked up on what he was doing and before long all of Leo's friends were Freezing the pixies and returning them to the cage. By the time the bell rang, all of the pixies had been cleared up and Leo and Marisa exited, very relieved.


	37. Bonus!

Bonus chapter - written for International Fanworks Day 2019 and posted then on AO3.

* * *

The next morning in the common room, Marisa was curled up in one of the snuggest armchairs, reading _Return of the King._ She'd seen the movies over the summer and had been binge-reading the books ever since but had still only just started this one, having not had time last night after finally discovering the counter-curse.

"What's that you're reading?" asked Leo, who was the only other student awake as it was half past six in the morning.

"_Lord of the Rings_," said Marisa. "Muggle fantasy. Epic."

"What's it like? Would I like it? It'll get me some bonus points when I take Muggle Studies next year if I've already read Muggle literature."

Marisa glanced up. "I think you would. This is the third part, though. Let me go and get the first one." She dashed up to the girls' dormitory and returned a minute later with a copy of _Fellowship_, which she handed to Leo.

An hour later, Marisa reluctantly put down her book in the middle of the Battle of Pelennor Fields. "We should get breakfast," she said.

Leo stood up and pulled a bookmark out of his pocket. "Do you want to go and put them in your trunk? I don't think Draco or Pansy or that lot would take kindly to Muggle books."

"Good thinking," said Marisa, "I'll do that now." She hurried off upstairs and when she returned the pair walked down to breakfast together.

"Where've you got to?" asked Marisa.

"_You shall not pass_," Leo quoted. "Gandalf's just fallen in."

"Thoughts so far?"

"It's epic, like you said. The characters don't seem to have much regard for their own lives to go on a suicidal quest like that. Which I don't mind. That abyss scene really took me by surprise, though. He's _Gandalf!_ He can't just _die!_"

Marisa smiled knowingly, but said nothing.

"Plus, I got one of those weird feelings about the abyss. You know, like I remember it?"

"Oh!" said Marisa. "The first time I saw it I actually got the same feeling!"

They looked at each other strangely.

"This has gone way too far to be a coincidence," said Leo.

"Yeah. It has. Do you have any clue what we can do about it?"

"No. Except writing down everything that gives us this feeling."

Marisa nodded and the two took their places at the Slytherin table. Draco was opposite them, so they could talk later.


	38. The First Meeting

It was Sunday, the first one since they had arrived at Hogwarts. Which meant that it was also the date of the first Snow Leopards meeting.

Five minutes before the start of the meeting, the first- and second-year Slytherins and Ravenclaws were beginning to gather in the Grounds. Leo and Marisa were there, of course, as were Theo, Daphne, and Tracey.

All of the Ravenclaws had joined: Terry and his friends Michael, Anthony, Roger and Ollie, as well as the girls: Morag, Padma, Lisa, Sue and Mandy.

Most of the first-years had also decided to join the group: two-thirds of the Ravenclaws and about half of the Slytherins.

"About time you started, isn't it?" Marisa asked.

"I guess so," replied Leo, then said more loudly. "Okay everyone, can I have your attention please? The fee, as you should know, is three Knuts per session to be paid directly to me at the beginning of each. Please form an orderly queue over here."

The students all lined up, some willing, others bemused. Leo wrote on his piece of parchment the name of each student, leaning on a Lockhart book. That was probably the most use the book would ever get.

Once all twenty-six names (including Leo's own) had been written down and Leo had earnt himself two Sickles and seventeen Knuts, it was time for the official start.

"Okay," said Leo, "before we start anything, I want to get an idea of your current level, so we are going to have a duelling tournament. The first-years will start, and the winning first-year will join in the next round with the second-years. So…" he thought for a moment, "five first-years will get to skip the first round and the others will play. Knockout tournament, of course."

He told the first-years to line up and then said: "First five to that tree get byes. Ready… go!"

Three Slytherin boys, a Ravenclaw boy and a Slytherin girl were first. Leo called the first match: "Sarah Johnson against Matthew Nott."

A muggle-born Ravenclaw girl and Theo's younger cousin stepped forward nervously, gripping their wands tightly.

"Okay," said Leo, "the only rule is that you're not allowed to do anything that could cause serious injury or that can't be reversed by a student. When you're ready… begin."

The Ravenclaw stood there and did nothing. Leo could see the panic in her eyes.

"_Petrificus Totalus!_" said Matthew.

Sarah tried and failed to dodge and was hit by the Full Body-Bind Curse.

Marisa rolled her eyes but Leo said nothing except to counter the curse and allow Sarah to move again.

"Well done, Matthew," said Leo. "Sarah…"

"I don't really know any spells that would be useful in a duel. That's why I'm here, really."

"Right," said Leo. "Do you know any spells at all?"

"I can light my wand up and I can turn a match into a needle."

"Okay, fair enough. You'll learn soon, don't worry."

The matches continued. Marisa didn't pay much attention to the first-year rounds except to see that Matthew came out on top.

The first second-year match was between Roger and Tracey. Roger disarmed Tracey and then hit her with another Full Body-Bind.

It was Leo's own turn next. He was put against Morag, who he beat with a _Melofors_ and an _Expelliarmus_, having dodged her Leg-Locker Curse. Daphne thrashed Matthew, Terry narrowly beat Padma, and then Marisa was put against Sue Li, who she defeated without too much trouble. Lisa, Anthony and Theo also went through to the quarter-finals.

The first quarter-final was Daphne against Terry. It was a close match, but Daphne just beat Terry with three Full Body-Binds in a row making them virtually impossible to dodge.

Secondly, Marisa duelled Lisa who she beat fairly easily, only having to dodge one Disarming Charm.

The third quarter-final was between Theo and Roger. Theo won with a very speedy _Expelliarmus._

Finally, Leo duelled Anthony who he defeated despite a close shave with a Full Body-Bind.

Marisa duelled Theo in the first semi-final, which went on for a very long time before Theo finally yielded to Marisa's Tickling Charm.

Leo had a slightly easier time against Daphne, who had good reactions but little magical power meaning that it was only a matter of time before he could land a Full Body-Bind.

That left the final, which was, inevitably, Leo versus Marisa.

"Ladies and gentlemen," announced Roger theatrically, "place your bets now."

Most of the Ravenclaws placed small amounts on Leo, although Daphne placed a whole Galleon on Marisa.

Theo was agreed by both parties to be the referee, and said once all bets had been placed: "Begin."


	39. The Duel

Leo immediately fired off a Disarming Charm, which Marisa dodged. She fired back her trademark Tickling Charm which hit Leo and left him giggling on the ground but still tightly gripping his wand.

"Do you give in?" asked Marisa, smirking.

"No," said Leo between giggles. "Definitely not."

Marisa sighed and kept going. Leo refused to launch a spell at Marisa.

This stalemate continued for nearly a minute before Marisa dispelled the Tickling Charm and fired a Full Body-Bind.

Unlike last time, however, Leo managed to roll underneath and regain his footing. He waited, wand in hand, for Marisa's next move.

"_Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus! Petrificus Totalus!_"

Three Full Body-Binds. One fired directly at Leo, and one to either side. Impossible to dodge all three at once unless you could fly.

Leo couldn't fly. But he did have one last trick up his sleeve. "_Protego!_"

The bubble-like shield appeared, wobbling, in thin air just before Marisa's spell smashed into it. Leo stayed perfectly still as the other two curses sailed harmlessly past. The shield wobbled uncontrollably, but – just about – held.

Leo shot Marisa a smug look, then decided that it was time to go on the offensive.

"_Melofors! Expelliarmus! Petrificus Totalus!_" he cast, quickly dispelling his shield. The first jinx hit her, but she rolled out of the way of the other two. A chorus of laughs broke out from the crowd as they saw Marisa lying on the ground, pumpkin encasing her head.

She struggled to her feet and decided to pull out one of her own trickier spells. "_Locomotor pumpkin!"_

The pumpkin, controlled by her Locomotion Charm, lifted up off Marisa's head and floated towards Leo, who turned and ran.

What followed was a game of cat-and-mouse which had most of the students gasping with laughter as if they'd been hit by one of Marisa's Tickling Charms.

Leo could run a lot faster than Marisa could make her pumpkin fly, but he was prevented by the students surrounding the duelling area from escaping altogether and so had to dodge and twist. Eventually he lost patience and flicked his wand at the pumpkin. "_Depulso!_" His Banishing Charm was stronger than Marisa's Locomotion Charm and so the pumpkin flew towards her.

She ducked and covered her head, having no wish to get it covered in pumpkin again, but remained alert and prepared to dodge – until she heard a familiar drawl.

"Asriel duelling the Mudblood? Finally seen sense, have you, Leo?"

Furious, Marisa instantly twisted her wand to point at Draco and screamed: "_Slugulus Erecto!"_

Draco doubled over, clutching his chest, and threw up three large slugs.

"I told you before," said Marisa coldly, "don't call me a Mudblood."

Then Leo's Full Body-Bind hit her in the chest.


	40. Extreme Awkwardness

Leo stood, wand still pointing at Marisa as she lay flat on the ground. He glanced from Marisa to Draco, who had just vomited another five slugs, and hesitated. This was one of the most awkward moments so far in his effort to not take sides between Marisa and Draco.

He hesitated before moving over to Draco. "You all right?"

Draco shook his head and another particularly large slug fell out of his mouth. "Let me… jinx her…" he said.

"You can if you like," said Leo, "but bear in mind she'll take revenge if you do."

"That would be – " A slug interrupted Draco's words – "revenge."

"Not in her book – the slug attack was revenge for you calling her a Mudblood, so you're even and she's free to retaliate against anything else you do."

Someone had countered Leo's Full Body-Bind while he had been busy with Draco, and Marisa was back on her feet.

"Exactly!" she said, looking smugly at Draco. "I'll duel you, if you want. Bet I can beat _you._"

Draco, reluctant though he was, knew when he was beaten. He lurched away, stopping every few steps to throw up more slugs, and turned back to fire off one last remark: "Your days at Hogwarts are numbered!"

"So are everyone's," said Marisa, not looking at all bothered by this unsubtle threat.

Leo, smiling a little despite himself, turned back to the group. "What have we learnt from that?" he asked.

"Don't get on the wrong side of Marisa?" suggested a Ravenclaw first-year.

"Well, that is a valid point," said Leo, "but it wasn't the one I had in mind."

Terry raised his hand. "Don't get distracted?"

"Exactly," Leo said. "The reason I was able to hit Marisa was that she was focused on Draco, not on me."

"I could have beaten you easily," Marisa added, grinning. "I just chose to target Draco instead."

"Yes, but you were meant to be duelling me, not Draco!"


	41. Disarming Game

"I think we should get back on topic," said Leo. "Does anyone have the time?"

Marisa glanced at her watch: eleven o'clock.

Leo hesitated for a moment. There was still quite a while left before lunchtime. "Okay," he said, "let's start by working on the Disarming Charm. If you've never learnt it before, line up here, if you've learnt it but haven't practiced much stand over here, and if you've mastered it stand over here."

The students divided up into three groups. The first-years were pretty evenly split between the first and second lines. Leo was joined in his line by all of the Slytherin second-years and two or three Ravenclaws.

"Okay," he said. "Um… Terry, could you supervise the first-years? I'll swap with you in a few minutes."

Terry nodded and walked off to instruct the first-years and some of the second-years who were learning and practicing the Disarming Charm.

Leo glanced around the remaining group: Marisa, Tracey, Theo, Daphne and Roger.

"Okay," he said, "let's play a game. Basically, we all have to try and Disarm each other, last one standing wins, no using any other spells."

Everyone nodded.

"Ready? Go!"

"_Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus! Expelliarmus!_"

For the first chaotic minute, Leo didn't actually aim any spells at anyone and instead focussed on dodging the jets of red light from all around. He noticed quite a few coming from a certain direction and guessed that Marisa was targeting him as she believed him the biggest threat. Which, of course, he was.

When the minute was up Tracey and Daphne were out and Marisa held two wands – he was pretty sure the second was Tracey's.

The remaining four stared at each other for a long moment and it was Marisa who made the first move. "_Expelliarmus!" _she said, one wand pointed at Leo and the other at Theo.

Leo had to admire her creativity and the strength of her magic in being able to wield two wands at once. He was relieved that it was Tracey's wand that was pointing at him, not Marisa's own, so the spell was weaker and easier to dodge.

Theo was not so lucky: his wand was ripped from his hand and Marisa caught it. She smirked.

"_Expelliarmus,"_ said Leo, knowing he had to take her down before she could focus solely on him.

Marisa dodged and, pointing all three wands at Roger, said: "_Expelliarmus!"_

Roger's wand was torn away from his grip and he was pushed backwards by the sheer force of the triple spell.

Marisa, grinning from ear to ear, caught Roger's wand.

Leo felt a strong sense of impending doom. "This is a health and safety risk!" he protested, pointing at Roger, who had collapsed to the ground under the sheer force of the spells. "We should make a rule saying – "

"You can't make rules in the middle of the game!" protested Marisa.

"I propose a vote," Leo suggested. "All in favour of a rule saying you should only be allowed to use one wand?"

Leo raised his hand. No-one else did.

"Um… can we have some reassurance that Marisa isn't going to make us vomit slugs if we vote for this?"

"I won't do that," she said, "but I'm not promising not to do anything…"

Roger cautiously raised his hand.

"All in favour of Leo getting his ass kicked?" asked Marisa with a grin.

Daphne, Theo and Marisa raised their hands.

"That's a clear majority, then…" she said smugly and pointed all four wands at Leo.

He knew that he wouldn't have any chance unless he acted before Marisa had the chance to, so he flicked his wand subtly at Marisa and whispered "_Expelliarmus_." Not waiting to see if the spell hit or not, he whirled around and began moving as quickly as he could in random directions. If he made himself a moving target, he might stand a chance.

As soon as he could, he glanced at Marisa to see what had happened: unfortunately, she was still clutching all four of the wands.

"_Expelliarmus!_" she said, and he was too slow to dodge: he was hit by all four spells.

He was forced backwards by the sheer power of the combined spells, his wand torn from his grasp by a powerful tug which he could do nothing at all to prevent. Then he hit something hard and heard a cry of "Ouch!"

He had been pushed back a good five metres and slammed directly into Theo's knees. The two Slytherins collapsed in a tangled heap.

"Do I win?" asked Marisa, walking towards them, now carrying five wands.

"Yes," said Leo grudgingly. "You win."


	42. Quidditch Tryouts

The following Saturday was the Slytherin Quidditch try-outs. Leo was in the stands right from the beginning. The official reason was to support Draco, but he actually wanted a certain someone else to become Slytherin seeker. Because she was better than he was so Slytherin would be more likely to win. That was definitely the only reason.

There were two vacancies on the team this year: Seeker and Chaser. They held the Chaser try-outs first. Leo watched them idly: all the students trying out were above his year and he didn't know any of them so he didn't really care who got in.

Then, finally, it was the turn of the Seekers. Draco and Marisa were the only two there (Leo had a sneaking suspicion that Lucius had bribed other prospective Seekers to stay away).

The captain, Marcus Flint, announced that he would release a Snitch and Draco and Marisa had to catch it.

They both mounted their Nimbus brooms: Draco his brand-new Two Thousand and One and Marisa the Two Thousand Leo had bought her last year.

Flint released the Snitch, counted to ten, and then blew a whistle.

Draco and Marisa both kicked off from the ground and flew up as high as they could to start searching for the Snitch. It was a full minute until anything happened.

Marisa was the one who spotted the Snitch first, but Leo could see her hesitation: Draco was closer and if she dived, he would beat her to it. So she flew slowly towards him and the Snitch, letting her gaze drift around and deliberately not fixing on anything.

Draco, meanwhile, had begun to circle around the pitch, clearly having no idea where the Snitch was. Leo smiled slightly as Marisa drifted down towards the Snitch.

Just as she was finally in range to make a dive for the Snitch, Draco spotted it and immediately dived. Marisa dived too, but she had lost that critical extra distance and Draco's broom was faster than hers.

Marisa stretched out her hand, straining every muscle to try and reach the Snitch before Draco did. Beside her, overtaking quickly, Draco did the same.

Their hands collided in mid-air, only millimetres away from the Snitch, and it was Marisa who recovered first. She grabbed the Snitch despite her fumbling fingers and flashed a triumphant smile into the stands before descending.

"Thank you," said Flint. "The final team will be posted on the notice board tomorrow."


	43. The Results

When Leo came downstairs the next morning, he found Marisa standing in front of the noticeboard, looking absolutely furious.

"What?" he asked.

Marisa was too angry to speak coherently. Instead she pointed to the piece of paper with the Quidditch team published on it. In neatly handwritten block capitals, it read: _SEEKER: DRACO MALFOY. RESERVE: MARISA KING._

"Oh," said Leo.

"Well?" she spat. "Aren't you going to do something?"

Leo hesitated. In truth there wasn't really that much he could do. "You can speak to Flint," he said, "but that's all we can do."

Marisa nodded. "Fine! And I'll make sure to tell him that I think he's an idiotic blood purist who doesn't deserve to be captain of a paper bag!"

"If you want to get on his team, that's probably not the best thing to tell him."

"Fair point," conceded Marisa.

"Come on. Let's get breakfast. He'll probably be down there."

Marisa nodded and they walked downstairs together. Flint was easy to find: he was one of the few up that early. Fortunately, Draco was not, which made things much less complicated.

"Okay," said Leo quietly, "no threats, no insults, no jinxing. Got it?"

"Yes," said Marisa, perhaps a touch reluctantly. Then she walked up to Flint. Leo sat down nearby to watch.

"Hello," said Marisa. "I wanted a word with you about the Quidditch team?"

"Ah," said Flint, "yes. You're the better player, King, but I didn't have a choice. Half the team would resign if we made you Seeker, not to mention we'd lose those Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones."

"If you just gave me one chance… I'm sure if the whole House saw me win them a match I could – "

"No," he said. "I'm sorry. If Draco turns out to be not as good as I think he is, I'll try you, but I can't promise anything else. You should be grateful you got what you did."

Marisa hesitated. Then, slowly, reluctantly, she nodded. "When does training start?"

"It's every Saturday," Flint replied, "beginning this week. Thank you."

She nodded and sat down opposite Leo, reaching for a slice of toast.


	44. Quidditch Training

The next Saturday was the first day of Quidditch training for Draco and Marisa, who had not received a Nimbus Two Thousand and One, unlike the rest of the Slytherin team. She wasn't surprised, and was only a little annoyed. It was relatively low on the long list of reasons Marisa had to hate Draco.

When they reached the Quidditch pitch they found the Gryffindor team already there and flying around. As soon as they spotted the new arrivals, they flew down to confront them.

Draco hid behind the six larger boys and dragged Marisa in behind him.

"What?" she hissed. "Ashamed of being on the same team as me?"

He shook his head violently. "Not here," he whispered. "Not in front of Gryffindors!"

She smiled slightly, seeing the opportunity.

"Flint!" bellowed the Gryffindor captain. "This is our practice time! We got up specially! You can clear off now!"

"Plenty of room for all of us," said Flint, sounding unconcerned.

"But I booked the field!" said Wood, furious. "I booked it!"

"Ah," replied Flint, "but I have a specially signed note here from Professor Snape. _I, Professor S. Snape_," he read, "_give the Slytherin team permission to practice today on the Quidditch field owing to the need to train their new Seeker…and reserve."_

Marisa was pleasantly surprised that those last two words had actually been added.

"You've got a new Seeker?" asked Wood. "Where?"

Draco stepped out from behind the larger boys, smirking. Marisa followed and stood beside him.

"Aren't you Lucius Malfoy's son?" said one of the Weasley twins, dislike visible in his gaze.

"Funny you should mention Draco's father," Flint said, and Marisa saw the smiles spreading over the faces of the rest of the team. "Let me show you the generous gift he's made to the Slytherin team."

They held out their new Nimbus Two Thousand and Ones.

"Very latest model," said Flint. "Only came out last month. I believe it outstrips the old Two Thousand series by a considerable amount. As for the old Cleansweeps, sweeps the board with them."

He paused, but none of the Gryffindors said anything. "Oh, look," he remarked, "a field invasion."

Marisa followed his gaze to see Granger and Weasley crossing the grass.

"What's happening?" asked Weasley. "Why aren't you playing? And what's he doing here?"

"I'm the new Slytherin Seeker, Weasley," said Malfoy smugly. "Everyone's just been admiring the brooms my father's bought our team. Good, aren't they? But perhaps the Gryffindor team will be able to raise some gold and get new brooms, too. You could raffle off those Cleansweep Fives; I expect a museum would bid for them."

Marisa really didn't see what was so funny, but the other Slytherins burst out laughing.

"At least no one on the Gryffindor team had to buy their way in," said Hermione sharply. "They got in on pure talent."

Marisa nodded at Granger and was about to say how much she agreed with Granger when Malfoy spat "No-one asked your opinion, you filthy little Mudblood!"

Instant uproar. Everyone in the Gryffindor team yelled and some of them almost jumped at Malfoy.

"I wish the Slytherins made this big a fuss when I was called that," remarked Marisa dryly.

Weasley grabbed his wand and screamed, "You'll pay for that one, Malfoy! _Slugulus Erecto!_"

Marisa snorted.

A loud bang echoed around the stadium and a jet of green light shot out of the wrong end of his wand, hitting him in the stomach and sending him reeling backwards onto the grass.

Marisa watched calmly as the Gryffindors attempted to assess him and he belched a few slugs. She saw Malfoy on all fours, he was laughing so hard.

"Think that's funny, do you?" she asked acidly. "I don't think you did last time?"

She continued to observe as Potter and Granger carried Weasley away, and once they were out of sight the Slytherins picked themselves up from where they had fallen about laughing and Flint said "I think as we have a full team and you don't, we are going to train now."

Marisa nodded and mounted her Nimbus Two Thousand.


	45. The Chamber of Secrets

Before Leo and Marisa knew it, it was Halloween. The first two months had gone by in a flash. The Snow Leopards were learning fast: most of the second-years were getting the hang of Shield Charms and were currently working on _Mobilarbus_ while the first years were working on the Full Body-Bind.

Quidditch training sessions were going acceptably for Marisa. She was working on winning over the other players in the hopes of eventually becoming permanent Seeker. So far it hadn't been working too well.

The Halloween feast had just ended and students were spilling out to head back towards their dormitories. Marisa had had a lot of practice at moving in crowds, so she drew ahead of Leo and as he tried to follow, he found Vincent had squeezed between them.

Sighing, he began to drop back, not having any particular inclination to hurry – until the crowd suddenly stopped outside a girls' bathroom. Silence fell dramatically. Leo wormed his way forwards and he could see: there was writing on the wall.

_THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS HAS BEEN OPENED. ENEMIES OF THE HEIR, BEWARE._

Hanging beneath the message was – a cat. Mrs. Norris, belonging to Filch. Dangling by her tail from the torch bracket, stiff and lifeless.

Leo knew what the Chamber was: it was created by Salazar Slytherin and held a monster, supposedly there to purge the school of those unworthy to study magic.

He shivered. He had just realised what Draco meant. _This_ was what he had referred to in the summer. _This _was what was going to kill Muggle-borns.

Draco knew something about it. Maybe he was even behind it.

And if someone couldn't find out what this was and put a stop to it, Marisa could be in danger.


	46. Discussing the Chamber

"Well?" asked Marisa impatiently.

It was about one o'clock. As it was the weekend, there was no need to worry about getting up early the next morning, so they were free to stay up late in order to avoid Draco.

"Well what?" replied Leo, even though he knew perfectly well what she meant.

"Well, can you please explain what that was?"

"What what was?"

"You know exactly what," said Marisa, her patience running out. "What is the Chamber of Secrets, who is the heir, and what does this has to do with Draco."

"Well," said Leo, "the only one I can fully answer is the first. The Chamber of Secrets was created by Salazar Slytherin after a dispute between him and Godric Gryffindor. Rumour states that it holds a monster destined to," he made quotation marks with his fingers, "purge the school of those who are unworthy to study magic".

"And… that means Muggle-borns, right?"

"That's how most people have interpreted it, but it's not necessarily what Slytherin meant. But Slytherin's dead, so it's the intentions of the heir that matter."

"The heir… of Slytherin?"

Leo nodded.

"Who is this heir?" she asked.

"Well, if I knew that, this wouldn't be happening now. Would it?"

"Got any theories?"

"No, I'm not sure."

"Shall we investigate together?"

Leo hesitated. "We can ask around, but I don't think we should do anything stupid."

"When did I mention that?" asked Marisa. "You know that I am not stupid, and wouldn't do anything stupid."

"I'm just _saying,_" Leo pointed out, "sneaking out to fly is one thing, tackling the thousand-year-old monster of Salazar Slytherin is quite another."

"I had no plans to _tackle _it," replied Marisa, "I just wanted to find out what it was. Anyway, I'd better get some sleep. See you tomorrow?"

"Yeah," Leo replied and stood up.


	47. Quidditch Match

A couple of weeks later was the first Quidditch match of the year, between Gryffindor and Slytherin. Marisa's efforts to persuade the team had not borne fruit just yet, and it was still Draco who was playing Seeker against Harry Potter. Marisa fully expected Slytherin to lose: Draco was good, but he wasn't as good as Potter.

As Draco was otherwise occupied, she was sitting next to Leo, watching as the teams mounted their brooms and the whistle blew.

Immediately a Bludger flew towards Potter, who dodged neatly. To Marisa's surprise, it spun in mid-air and flew back towards him again.

At first, she thought that it was just a coincidence, but five minutes later it was still headed at Potter. The Gryffindor Seeker had yet to be hit, but Marisa knew it couldn't be long before he was.

"Do you think it's been tampered with?" asked Leo.

"Thank you, Captain Obvious!" replied Marisa. "Of course it has!"

Leo glared at Marisa, who had leaned forward to watch the game.

"Hang on," she said quietly, "is that – by Draco's ear – "

It was, and she could see that Potter had spotted it too and was trying to work out how to get closer without alerting Draco.

"What?"

"The _Snitch_," she said, "idiot."

"Should we shout for Draco?"

"Honestly, Leo, what has happened to your brain today? We most certainly should not. Because," she went on impatiently, "if Draco misses this, Flint will be absolutely furious with him. Possibly even so furious that he'll kick him off the team…"

"And?" asked Leo, looking blankly at her.

"And a certain someone might be chosen to replace him."

"Who?"

"Okay," said Marisa, "you are definitely faking this. There is absolutely no way you'd be that clueless in reality."

Leo threw up his hands. "You got me. Did you really think I was serious?"

"No!" said Marisa, even though she had for a moment or two. She continued watching: the Bludger had just slammed into Potter's arm, and looked to have done some pretty painful damage, but he flew directly at Draco to catch the Snitch anyway.

However, having now lost his grip on the broom, Potter fell and hit the ground hard. As people rushed towards him, Marisa remarked dryly: "What is it about Potter, Quidditch and being sabotaged?"


	48. Sunday Morning Thoughts

The next morning, a Sunday, Leo and Marisa were in the common room playing Exploding Snap with Theo, Daphne and Tracey and discussing the latest disturbing rumours.

"Did you hear who was attacked?" asked Marisa.

"Gryffindor first-year. Colin Creevey. Mean anything to you?" Theo tapped the pile of cards in front of him with his wand and watched as they lit up a silvery-grey colour.

She thought for a moment. "Wasn't he the one who was always taking pictures of Potter?"

Leo slammed his wand down on her pile: she had been distracted and hadn't noticed the red six she had, the same as the face-up card.

Theo nodded. "There's a rumour going around that Potter's the Heir of Slytherin, because of that."

"But he's in Gryffindor!" said Tracey. "He can't possibly be Slytherin's heir…"

"It makes no sense!" agreed Daphne.

"How many cards do I owe you?" asked Marisa, sighing.

"I don't know…" Leo said thoughtfully, sensing the eyes of the group on him. "It's possible… I wouldn't think it likely but it could be that he's pretending to be incompetent very, very well… Oh, and five."

"Who do you think it is?" asked Marisa, counting out the top five cards from her pile and handing them over to Leo. "It's almost certainly a Slytherin, right…?"

"Don't see why it matters to us," Theo said. "We're safe. None of us Slytherins are muggle-born."

There was a very, very awkward silence. Everyone looked at Marisa, who glared at Theo and said absolutely nothing, although her eyes were clearly saying "If you don't apologise at once, something very unpleasant will happen to you."

Theo's pile of cards exploded right underneath his slightly sheepish face.


	49. Overheard Information

I'll be away over the weekend, so the next update won't be until Tuesday.

* * *

Later that morning, Marisa was wandering around on the second floor, whiling away the time before the Snow Leopards' meeting which was due to start in an hour. To her surprise, she saw Harry Potter walking decisively past. She raised her eyebrows: the only place nearby was the haunted girls' bathroom – and the place where Mrs. Norris had been attacked.

This was suspicious. There was no normal reason why Potter would be coming down here, and in a time like this it was definitely a good idea to find out what he was up to.

Discreetly, careful to stay a safe distance behind him, she followed him towards the haunted bathroom and waited outside the door, listening carefully.

She could hear voices: wasn't it Weasley and Granger? She listened more closely.

A clunk, a splash, and a gasp, and then Granger's voice: "Harry! You gave us such a fright – come in – how's your arm?"

Intrigued, Marisa listened more closely. She heard the words "Polyjuice Potion" and wondered exactly what that was. Apparently, it would force a confession out of Draco – Potter suspected him of being Slytherin's heir.

There was even more information: Potter had been visited by someone called "Dobby" in the middle of the night. Dobby was responsible for the Bludger, and the flying car incident at the beginning of the term, but actually wanted to save Potter's life. And the Chamber did exist, and it had been opened before.

This was better than she had dared to hope. She couldn't wait to find out what Leo thought of all of this. It was time to go, though. She had learnt all she could, and there was no sense in staying around to be caught.


	50. Hiding Curiosity

About fifteen minutes before the start of the meeting, Leo was standing in the grounds, waiting for the others to show up. Theo and Tracey were already there, discussing something with each other, but none of the others had shown up yet.

He shivered slightly: it was turning very cold and his robes weren't really warm enough for this sort of weather. He'd have to dig his winter cloak out of the trunk before too long.

As he glanced back towards the castle, he saw Marisa, wrapped up in a pale green coat, jogging gently towards him. He smiled slightly as he felt tension that he hadn't even noticed before releasing at the sight of her.

She waved slightly, hurrying towards him until she was close enough to talk.

"Hello!" said Leo. "Looking forward to learning a new spell?"

"Yes," she said, but he could see something was different to normal. She stepped closer until their bodies were virtually touching each other and whispered in his ear, her hot breath warming it.

_"__I've found out something important_," she breathed. "_Tell you later…_"

He nodded, but didn't draw back from her. He could feel the heat radiating off her body, warming him. Leo couldn't help being slightly annoyed: he wouldn't be able to focus on teaching the second-years _Ascendio_ when his mind was on wondering what Marisa had found out.

She stepped back to a more usual distance from Leo as Daphne arrived with a couple of the Ravenclaws and then the first-years began to join the little group.

"Okay," he said, "first-years are going to keep working on the Full Body-Binds, could you get into pairs and start practicing? Second-years, over here, we're learning _Ascendio_ today."

He waited for everyone to get into groups as requested, and then began carefully demonstrating the wand movements required for the spell, all the while burning with curiosity.


	51. In The Library

After the meeting, Marisa immediately left after just a slight glance at Leo. "Just going to the library," she said, "thought I might catch up on some homework."

Leo followed her, and before long they were hidden in one of the quieter sections: a set of books on Ancient Runes.

"Well?" asked Leo.

"I overheard Potter talking to Weasley and Granger…"

She told him everything she'd found out. "So," asked Marisa once she'd finished, "can you shed some light on what all that was about?"

"I know Dobby – he's the Malfoys' house elf, very weird. So, I'm guessing he doesn't know any more than I do. Polyjuice Potion makes you look like someone else, be on your guard around Potter, Weasley and Granger – you need a bit of a person, so don't let them get hold of your hair."

Marisa nodded.

"The Chamber was opened before fifty years ago – I've done a little research and the person who was arrested for it was…" He paused, for the sake of creating drama. "Hagrid."

"No way!" said Marisa. "He can't possibly be – I mean, everyone knows he loves monsters, but something like that – "

"I agree," replied Leo. "That makes it extremely likely that he was framed."

"And that's all the information we have."

"Yes."

"So, what do we do about the Polyjuice thing?"

"Nothing, as yet. I'll see if I can catch them and confront them somewhere where Draco won't see. If you happen to be passing that bathroom, have a listen in to find out how they're getting on. However, I do have a few things I think we could try without too much risk…"

Marisa smiled slightly. "Such as?"

"Geanology. Pure-blood wizards are big on their ancestry, so we should be able to find out who the possible descendants of Slytherin are. And there are charts in the library here – I think we should look now. You do your Potions essay; we don't want anyone getting suspicious."

She nodded and retrieved parchment and quill from her bag. Five minutes later Leo returned, carrying a heavy book entitled _The Wizarding Descendants of Salazar Slytherin, 1000 AD – 1200 AD._

"This may be a bit tedious. Wish me luck." And he opened the book, while Marisa began writing out the properties of Flobberworm mucus.

Two hours later, they were still there. Marisa was running out of essays to write, having by now done Potions, Transfiguration and Herbology, and was working on a particularly dull History of Magic essay.

Leo, meanwhile, had pored over three massive geanology books and was now on _The Wizarding Descendants of Arthur Gaunt, 1200 AD – 1400 AD._

"Any luck?" asked Marisa.

"Kind of," replied Leo. "It's really tedious – you never know when the line you're following is just going to stop and make ages of work be all for nothing. This one looks fairly promising, though, I think it might get somewhere."

"Can you remember the top ten causes of the Second Goblin Rebellion?"

"Yes, but I thought catching the heir of Slytherin would be more important than getting top grades from Professor Binns."

Marisa shot him a glare but had to acknowledge that he had a good point. She could remember six or seven of the reasons, so she'd be able to at least make a decent start without help.

"Hello."

It was Draco. Marisa spun round to glare at him and cover up Leo's hastily picking up a quill and beginning to write on a spare piece of parchment.

"Hello," she replied cautiously.

"What are you doing?"

"Writing essays," she said, trying not to sound too guilty.

"What's that big book, then?" asked Draco. He was pointing to _The Wizarding Descendants of Arthur Gaunt._

"Oh," said Leo, looking up. "Hey, Draco. Just something I needed to look up for History of Magic."

That produced the desired results: Draco's eyes glazed over and he said "Oh, right."

"We're working on that at the moment," continued Leo, feeling a little mischievous. "Would you like to join us?"

"Yeah, do, Draco," said Marisa, catching on. "It's really fascinating – I find Professor Binns makes the subject so interesting – really makes you think about all those goblin rebellions – "

Draco looked at her as if she'd gone mad. "No, sorry – I have to go – uh – wash my hair." He made a speedy exit.

Leo and Marisa looked at each other for one long moment, and as soon as Draco was out of earshot, they simultaneously burst out laughing.

"Wash his hair?" Marisa choked out between giggles. "That is literally the worst excuse ever!"

"Did you see the look on his face?" Leo said, managing to compose himself a little but still grinning from ear to ear.

"Good way to get him off our backs," said Marisa, gulping in air. "Remind me to use that trick some time."

"Yeah," said Leo, and they returned to their tedious work, minds much refreshed by the laughter.


	52. More Research

Leo didn't finish his mission that day: Madam Pince had got suspicious and chased them out, but he still had careful notes to enable him to carry on later. They'd gone back to the common room and Leo had helped Marisa with her History of Magic essay and got some of his own essay-writing done.

That day between classes, they snuck to the library whenever they had a chance, which wasn't often. Marisa did a freshly-assigned Charms essay while Leo continued working through the geanology books.

At lunch, both of them ate as quickly as they could before returning to their mission. It took them until nearly seven o'clock in the evening before Leo finally threw down _The Wizarding Descendants of Henry Gaunt, 1800 – 2000 (Thirty-fourth Edition) _and said: "That's it. Dead end."

"What?" asked Marisa. "You mean you haven't found it?"

"No," he said. "I got as far as about 1920,1930, something like that, but then there's no more descendants… or should I say," he went on, "no more registered descendants."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," he said, "plenty of the old-fashioned blood-purist families – "

"Like yours?"

"Yes," he said, shooting Marisa a look. "Like mine. They didn't put it on the tree if a family member had disgraced them. So, they might not register a squib, or someone who married a Muggle."

"So, you're saying all this work finding registered descendants has been for nothing and there's about fifty unregistered ones out there who we have no clue how to find?"

"Sort of. There is still one thing we can try…"

Marisa pounced on the hope that she hadn't just done all of her homework in two days for nothing. "What is it?"

"Well, we could try looking through old _Daily Prophets_," Leo suggested. "The library has a huge archive of them. They might have records of what happened to these Gaunts."

Marisa nodded. "That could work… it sounds like hard work, though. Oh well, I've done all of my homework by now. What are we looking for?"

They went over to the _Daily Prophets _section, and Leo told her what she needed to do. "We're looking for any mention of a Morfin, Marvolo or Merope Gaunt, from about 1900 all the way through to now. If you take the first decade, I'll take the second…"

Marisa groaned. This was going to take _forever…_


	53. Dead End

In the end, it took a day and a half in between classes, staying up as late as Madam Pince would let them get away with, before Marisa finally pronounced triumphantly "I've got it!" and produced an edition dated _16 September, 1925._

They scrutinised the article carefully: its headline was _Gaunt Family Sentenced to Imprisonment. _The article read:

_Marvolo Gaunt, head of the formerly wealthy and influential House of Gaunt, and his son Morfin were today sentenced by the Wizengamot to six months and three years respectively in Azkaban. Marvolo was convicted of the attempted assault of his daughter Merope, attacking representitives of the Ministry of Magic, resisting arrest, obstruction of justice and contempt of Wizengamot. His son was convicted of jinxing a Muggle, resisting arrest and assaulting a Magical Law Enforcement officer. The motives for these attacks were unknown._

Marisa stared curiously at the article. "So… what does that tell us? Where do we look next?"

Leo hesitated for a moment. "Err… I don't actually know. We haven't got the full picture, and I don't expect they'd let students look at old Wizengamot records without good reason."

"This is for a good reason," protested Marisa.

"We haven't exactly got any hard evidence, have we?"

Marisa nodded reluctantly.

"If you copy down this article so we have a record of it, and then we should keep looking, I suppose…"

They did. It took them two days to get through the entire volume of _Daily Prophets_ up until fifty years ago_,_ and they found nothing more of any use.

"Now," said Marisa, "we really have reached a dead end."


	54. Potions

Leo and Marisa both signed up to stay at Hogwarts over the Christmas holidays: Leo because Lucius wanted him and Draco to keep an eye on the situation with the Chamber and Marisa because she had decided that Hogwarts was far, far more exciting than home.

In Potions, one Thursday, a few days after Leo and Marisa's birthdays, the Gryffindors and Slytherins were brewing the Swelling Solution. Leo's potion was slightly too watery, even though he'd added exactly the amount the instructions called for. Marisa's, meanwhile, was just the right consistency.

"How are you doing that?" asked Leo. "I added just as much water as you did, why is mine so watery?"

Marisa glanced around to make sure Professor Snape wasn't watching: he was sneering at Potter's potion and not paying them any attention. Draco and Pansy were laughing at whatever he was saying.

"I added the water a little bit at a time," replied Marisa, "and stirred it in gradually until the consistency was right."

"That's not what the instructions say… though it does make sense, and it certainly seems to have worked for you. I'll bear that in mind for future reference."

They each returned to their work, concentrating on the fires they were lighting underneath their cauldrons to get them at precisely the right temperature.

As they were doing that, they heard a loud splashing sound and suddenly the greenish liquid in one of the cauldrons flew into the air and covered the students. Marisa got a bit on her hand, which immediately began to increase in size. Not knowing quite what to do, she stared at it as it inflated to the size of a dinner plate.

For a few moments, the room was filled with chaos, before Professor Snape yelled "SILENCE! Anyone who has been splashed, come here for a Deflating Draught – when I find out who did this – "

Marisa staggered up to Professor Snape's desk, struggling to support the weight of her massive arm, and as she did so she saw Granger slipping out of Snape's office, robes bulging, and then she immediately understood: ingredients for the Polyjuice Potion.

She shared a brief glance at Leo, who was still standing by his cauldron, and knew that he had seen, too, and he also knew exactly what was going on.

This information would be extremely useful in the future. She smiled slowly.


	55. The Duelling Club, Part One

One week later, Leo noticed a piece of parchment on the wall. Apparently, Hogwarts was starting a Duelling Club. To tell the truth, he wasn't particularly keen on the idea: he much preferred learning independently through the Snow Leopards, being able to push himself in the ways he wanted instead of having to ask permission and have his back watched the whole time.

But Draco loved the thought of learning to duel, and decided that he would sign up, so Leo decided to go along for the ride. Marisa, on hearing this, also decided to join the group.

At eight o'clock that evening, they gathered in the Great Hall to begin the first session. To Leo's horror, the person walking onto the stage was his least favourite teacher, even including Professor Binns: Gilderoy Lockhart. He was accompanied by Professor Snape.

To begin with, Snape and Lockhart carried out a demonstration of duelling. Snape took precisely one second to Disarm Lockhart. Leo couldn't resist cheering, he hated Lockhart so much. Many of the other Slytherins, including Draco, did the same.

Lockhart tried to claim that he could easily have been able to have stopped Snape, who was looking absolutely furious at this claim.

Then they both came down and started putting the students into pairs. Leo was expecting to have to go with Draco, but he was spared from this: Draco was called by Professor Snape to partner Potter.

Lockhart reached the remainder of the Slytherin group (the second-year Snow Leopards, as well as Pansy) and said "Right, there's six of you, so three pairs," before moving on. Leo partnered Marisa, Theo Daphne and Tracey was left with Pansy.

Once everyone was in pairs, Lockhart, who had returned to the platform, said: "Face your partners! And bow!"

Leo and Marisa bowed to each other.

"Wands at the ready! When I count to three, cast your charms to disarm your opponents – only to disarm them – we don't want any accidents – "

Leo was more certain than ever that this was a waste of time: he had been able to Disarm effectively for ages by now, and so had Marisa.

"One…two…three…"

_"__Expelliarmus!"_ yelled Leo and Marisa at the same time. The jets of red light shooting out from their wands collided in mid-air and bounced off each other, Leo's hitting Pansy just as she reclaimed her own wand from Tracey and Marisa's ripping Theo's from his hand as he stared at Daphne, who he had just beaten.

Leo was just observing Pansy looking for her wand all over again when he felt his own wand being pulled from his hand; turning quickly around, he saw Marisa standing with his wand in her hand and a smirk on her face.

Many of the other duels had not progressed so well: Finnegan was ashen-faced and being held up by Weasley, Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley were both on the ground, and Millicent was half-suffocating Granger.

As for Draco and Potter… the less said about that, the better. Draco was speechless with laughter on the ground, under the influence of what Leo easily recognised as Marisa's trademark Tickling Charm and Potter's legs were dancing around uncontrollably.

Leo and Marisa glanced at each other and rolled their eyes. They hadn't realised until that moment quite how far their extracurricular studying had put them ahead of the crowd when it came to duelling.


	56. The Duelling Club, Part Two

Once the chaos had been sorted out, Snape and Lockhart stood in the middle of the hall. "I think I'd better teach you how to block unfriendly spells," said Lockhart.

"Shield Charm," said Leo to Marisa, rolling his eyes.

"Let's have a volunteer pair – Longbottom and Finch-Fletchley, how about you – "

Snape disagreed: Longbottom, apparently, would cause devastation. Instead, he suggested Draco and Potter. Lockhart agreed and the pair stepped forward.

Potter and Lockhart conferred for a moment (Lockhart tried to demonstrate something and dropped his wand) and then Draco cast: "_Serpensortia_!"

A long black snake shot out of the end of Draco's wand and slithered towards Potter.

"Why didn't you teach us that spell?" asked Marisa in an undertone as the snake raised itself to strike.

Lockhart pointed his wand at the snake: there was a bang, and the snake flew up into the air and hit the ground again. Hissing furiously, it slithered straight towards Finch-Fletchley, about to strike –

And then a strangled hissing stopped it in its tracks, and it fell to the ground, docile, looking directly at Potter.

Everyone gulped, and soon there was an ominous muttering filling the room. "What do you think you're playing at?" yelled Justin and stormed out.

"Explain later," said Leo quietly to Marisa, and then went over to speak to Draco.

"Potter's a Parselmouth?" asked Draco, shocked.

"Evidently," replied Leo, mind whirring as he considered the implications of this. If he was a Parselmouth, that greatly increased the chances of his being Slytherin's heir… "Does that mean he's – "

Draco picked up on the implication. "No – why on earth would he go around with the Mudblood if he was?"

"I hope you weren't talking about me," said Marisa coldly: unable to wait for Leo to explain later, she had decided to eavesdrop instead.

"No," said Draco quickly, "we weren't."

"What's a Parselmouth?"

"Look it up," snapped Draco. "I can't be bothered to explain these things to _you_. You should make an effort to understand our culture!"

Marisa rolled her eyes and walked away.

"I'm not sure… he could be just doing that to try and deflect suspicion… we can't rule anyone out without more evidence."

Draco, frustrated, glared at Leo. "Why can you never, ever, be certain of anything?"

"Because absolute certainty is impossible. Prove to me that the entire world is not an illusion created by a purple devil intent on tricking everyone and stealing their souls."

Leo didn't actually believe that certainty was completely impossible, but winding Draco up was far too much fun to let a perfect opportunity slip by.

"But that's just ridiculous! Of course it can't be true!"

"Prove it," insisted Leo, carefully hiding his smile from Draco.

"Well – how on earth am I meant to do that – it's impossible to prove that kind of thing – "

"Exactly. Therefore, it is possible that the world is an illusion."

Draco stared at Leo suspiciously, as if trying to find the gap in his logic written on his face, and then said "You must be mad!" Then he spun around and stalked off.

Leo grinned. Driving Draco mad was extremely entertaining.


	57. More Midnight Discussions

"What _is _a Parselmouth?" asked Marisa. It was late that night, and as usual the pair were having a secret conversation in the Slytherin common room.

"Someone who can speak to snakes," replied Leo. "Slytherin could do it, so that means everyone's going to think Potter's his heir. Which I don't think is extremely likely, but we definitely can't eliminate him as a suspect."

"Does this mean the monster's a snake?" asked Marisa. "Because that seems very likely given…"

Leo was at first surprised that he hadn't worked this out himself. It seemed so obvious, the natural conclusion to jump to, when Marisa said it, but he hadn't worked it out in months of knowing that Slytherin could speak to snakes.

"I… don't know…" he said slowly. "It does seem likely, you're right, but I can't help thinking it's just too obvious for it to be right… but add it to the list of possibilities."

"It's a very long list," said Marisa, "what with your insistence on not eliminating anything, no matter how unlikely. In fact, it's infinitely long."

Leo rolled his eyes. "It's technically impossible for anything real to be infinite."

"Can you prove that?" asked Marisa, a teasing glint in her eye and a mischievous smile on her face.

Leo glared at her as he quickly tried to think of some kind of proof, but when he began to consider what little he knew of Muggle cosmology he quickly realised that he knew nowhere near enough to prove that the Universe was finite.

He was half-tempted to say something along the lines of "It just is! Because it's ridiculous!" but quickly realised how hypocritical that would make him and the fact that Marisa would definitely point it out, so he sighed and admitted "You win."

Marisa's grin was unbearably smug.


	58. Breakfast and Rumours

The next morning, one of the last few days of term, it was so cold that Herbology was cancelled. Some of the Slytherins, stuck in Transfiguration with the Ravenclaws, were rather jealous. Leo didn't particularly mind, though: Transfiguration was very useful and he'd have all the free time he needed soon once the holidays began.

At lunch, the Slytherins were gathered at their table in the Great Hall when the news came: there had been another attack on Justin Finch-Fletchley and a ghost.

"Where does that put your theory that Potter isn't the heir now?" asked Tracey, who had firmly believed that he was ever since the Duelling Club.

"Actually," replied Leo, "it makes it more likely."

"What?"

Leo rolled his eyes, but Marisa was one step ahead of Tracey and began the explanation before Leo could.

"If Potter is the heir, _and_ he has a brain, then he wouldn't have gone after Finch-Fletchley after that incident because he knows that that would make people suspicious of him. We already know that if Potter is the heir, he must have a brain, otherwise he'd be a blood-purist Slytherin. Therefore, Potter is not the heir."

Leo nodded. "Correct. There's just one thing you missed: it could be that Potter realises that this will be our chain of reasoning and so has attacked Finch-Fletchley to draw the suspicion of the actual intelligent people away from us…"

Marisa shot him a look. "Do you really think that's likely?"

"No. But it's a possibility."

Marisa was getting annoyed by Leo's insistence on pursuing the most unlikely scenarios. But this time, she had backup. It was somewhat weird for her to be on the same side as Draco as they, Theo, Tracey and Daphne all verbally attacked Leo.

"How would you all feel if he was the heir and had been doing what I said and you were all wrong?" asked Leo.

"Since that's never going to happen," replied Draco snidely, "it's irrelevant."

Marisa was strongly tempted to bang her head against the table. She had been listening to this sort of thing far too often recently.

"I've been doing a bit of research," said Leo to Marisa on Christmas Day, "and if Potter and co. started brewing in November the Polyjuice should be ready today. Keep on your guard."

Marisa nodded.


	59. The Polyjuice Potion, Part One

This scene was originally meant to be one chapter but when I realised it was over a thousand words I decided to split it into two, possibly three, depending on how far I get with this. It's been a little tricky to write - I hope I've got Harry and Ron more or less in character and I'm not being too harsh on them. And as always, my characters' opinions are not my own.

* * *

"I've been doing a bit of research," said Leo to Marisa on Christmas Day, "and if Potter and co. started brewing in November the Polyjuice should be ready today. Keep on your guard."

Marisa nodded.

That evening, Leo was leaving the Christmas tea, almost too full to move. He had been observing all of the Slytherins, trying to see if anyone was acting suspiciously, and hadn't found any, but now it was reaching the point where it would get suspicious if he stayed any longer. Only Vincent and Gregory remained at the table.

He spotted a couple of chocolate cakes sitting on the banisters and immediately thought that this was _very _worrying. After looking thoroughly but subtly around and finding nothing more, he walked around the next bend in the corridor and then stopped, waiting to see what would happen.

About five or six minutes later, Vincent and Gregory stepped into the corridor and immediately began to stuff themselves with cakes – and then keeled over, as whatever potion had been concealed inside took effect.

Leo counted to ten and then walked back into the corridor, just in time to see Potter and Weasley bending over the unconscious idiots.

"Hello," he said casually, one hand inside his pocket reaching for his wand just in case.

They looked up quickly, took one look at his Slytherin-crested robes, and glanced at each other in horror.

"Hi – uh – we were just – um – " Potter stammered vaguely, guilt written all over his face.

Leo tried to prevent himself from mentally correcting their pathetic attempts at covering up what they were doing. "Putting them to sleep so you can steal their hair for the Polyjuice Potion so you can find out if Draco Malfoy is Slytherin's heir?"

He fought to prevent himself from laughing at the shocked looks on their faces. Perhaps it hadn't been the ideal thing to say, but it was definitely worth it.

Potter evidently decided that there was no point in denying it any more, because he said "Um… yeah. How on earth did you guess?"

"I prefer not to disclose my sources," he said, smiling mysteriously. This was even easier than messing with Draco, and he couldn't help enjoying it very much.

An awkward silence fell between them: Leo was waiting for them to make the next move and they were waiting for him to do the same.

Leo heard footsteps and a second later Marisa strolled into the scene, bag over her shoulder, and leaned casually against the wall.

"Oh, hey, Leo," she said calmly. "What's going on?" She already knew the answer, of course, but it wouldn't do to give too much away.

"They're trying to impersonate Crabbe and Goyle, but I caught them in the act," replied Leo.

"Are you going to tell the teachers?" she asked.

Leo hesitated, pretending to consider the merits of each option when in fact he'd already done so, several times. "I haven't decided yet. I'd prefer to see what there is in not telling for me before I decide."

Weasley finally broke his horrified silence by yelling "Are you blackmailing us?"

"Keep your voice down," replied Leo. "You'll attract a teacher, and you have a lot more to lose than I do."

Marisa, unlike Leo, wasn't even trying to hide her glee at this situation.

"And… yes, I suppose I am, but that doesn't change the fact that unless you want to be prosecuted for illegal use of two regulated potions, you don't really have many options."

They stood there for a moment, each of the four considering what to say next.


	60. The Polyjuice Potion, Part Two

"So what are you going to do?" asked Potter.

"Well, maybe our objectives aren't as different as you might think. I do also want to find out who Slytherin's heir is."

"And I'm Muggle-born," Marisa admitted. "So I'm in danger, too. At least, I think I am."

But their attempts to negotiate weren't working: Weasley had the look of someone who had figured something out.

"You're Asriel," he said, making the name sound like a deadly insult.

"I am."

"You're the son of You-Know-Who's most infamous supporters."

"I am."

"You're the Heir of Slytherin!"

Leo blinked at the unexpected accusation. "That is a completely unfounded accusation. You are jumping to conclusions."

"You haven't denied it!"

Leo rolled his eyes. "I am not the Heir of Slytherin."

"He isn't," agreed Marisa. "Although I can't be absolutely certain of that."

Leo shot Marisa a look. This probably wasn't the best time to bring that up again.

"You're lying!"

"Is there anything I can say that will convince you that I'm not the Heir of Slytherin? An account of my movements during the attacks? Haven't you just seen that I'm friends with a Muggle-born?"

Leo didn't like the way this conversation was going. Suddenly he'd been flung onto the defensive, and he wasn't taking kindly to that.

Weasley had drawn his wand. Leo drew his own.

"Do you really want to do this?" he asked. "I can probably out-duel you with one arm tied behind my back and my eyes shut. And bear in mind that you'd be wise not to act unkindly towards me, considering that I can still inform the authorities about what you've been up to."

There was another moment's silence. Leo stared at Weasley, ready to throw up a shield at a millisecond's notice should it be required.

Eventually, Weasley slowly lowered his wand, but he didn't tuck it away. "I still think you're Slytherin's heir," he said defiantly.

Leo rolled his eyes and mouthed to Marisa: _"Gryffindors!_"

She nodded.

"And what are you going to do about it," asked Leo. "Without any solid evidence – which doesn't exist – you'll never get a grown-up to listen to you. And there's no way your Polyjuice trick will work on me. Where's Granger, by the way? I thought she was in on this too."

It was the wrong thing to say. "What have you done to her?" screamed Potter (quietly; at least some of his words had made an impression).

"Absolutely nothing," said Leo, perfectly calmly.

"What are you going to do to her?"

"Absolutely nothing. Well, if you keep going at this rate, I'll turn her in for illegal potion-brewing, but nothing else. And generally, when someone's trying to blackmail you, it's a good idea to at least listen to their demands."

"Well?" snapped Potter. "What are they?"

Leo paused. To be honest, he didn't really know exactly what he wanted. "To begin with, you can tell me everything you know about the Chamber of Secrets."

"We don't know anything," said Weasley.

"Liar," replied Leo, who knew at least some of what they knew, thanks to Marisa's information.

"Why would we tell you? You already know everything, don't you?"

Leo was getting very annoyed by this point. He was half tempted to just forget all this and turn them in. "No, I don't. And if I did, there would be no point in asking what you knew."

"Yes, there would," said Weasley. "If you knew what we knew you could work out whether we were a threat and you needed to – to kill us."

"Congratulations!" said Leo, "that's the first halfway intelligent thing you've actually said today!" The sarcasm was probably a bad idea, but his patience was running out by now. "But I'm still not the Heir of Slytherin. Now are you going to tell me, or not?"

Potter and Weasley glanced at each other, weighing up the risks of telling him against the risks of not telling him, before Potter said "Yes" at the same time as Weasley said "No."

Leo blinked and waited to see if the two Gryffindors could reach an agreement.


	61. The Polyjuice Potion, Part Three

"Look," said Weasley angrily, "we can't trust him, okay. Because – "

"Because I'm a Slytherin, so therefore I'm evil? Honestly? Look, I'm a lot more than just my parents and my house. You barely know me. What gave you the right to judge me based on stereotypes and assumptions?" Leo's voice was mild, but the anger behind it was very sincerely felt.

"Because," spat Weasley, "you're trying to blackmail us!"

"Fair point," Leo admitted. "But still, it's your choice not to trust me. For what it's worth, you can trust me with whatever you choose to."

Potter took a deep breath. "All right," he said, and then told Leo what he already knew: the Chamber had been opened before, and Dobby had warned him about it.

"I see," said Leo. "Is that definitely everything?"

Potter nodded. Leo observed him carefully, but couldn't see any traces of guilt or hesitation on his face.

"And what," asked Marisa, "made you suspect that Draco was Slytherin's heir?"

"You mean other than the fact that he hates Muggle-borns and that he's an idiotic blood-purist?" asked Weasley sarcastically.

"Yes," said Leo. "That description could apply to quite a few people in Slytherin, who's to say it isn't one of them?"

Weasley stared at Leo as if he had never realised this fairly obvious fact before.

"By the way, I can be ninety-nine percent certain that Draco is not the Heir of Slytherin."

"Right!" spat Weasley. "Because you are!"

"No, I'm not," replied Leo wearily. "And I can prove it. My family's bloodline can be traced back through the last thousand years, every last relative accounted for, and none of them are in any way descended from Salazar Slytherin. We can go and look through the geanology books if you don't believe me. Draco does know something, but I don't think it's any more than we know now."

There was a slight pause. Leo wondered if there was anything else that they could ask. It was Marisa who came up with an idea.

"I want some of this Polyjuice Potion," she said. "Just in case I happen to need it for anything."

This time they did hesitate noticeably. "Ron," said Potter, in an undertone evidently meant to be inaudible to Leo and Marisa, "what exactly are the consequences of illegally brewing and using regulated potions?"

"Um… I dunno exactly… I guess we'd be fined and get warning letters and they'd tell our parents…"

"More importantly," said Leo, "you would both have criminal records, and if I wanted to, I could make sure everyone knew about it so your reputations would be permanently damaged."

He stared at the pair of Gryffindors unflinchingly, watching as they mentally weighed up the disadvantages of this against the disadvantages of handing a vial of Polyjuice Potion to someone as sneaky as Leo or Marisa who would be able to do thousands of possibly-illegal things with it if they wanted.

Finally, Potter asked "How much do you want?"

"One vial each," said Leo, ignoring the look Marisa, who would rather have asked for more, shot him.

"We – uh – haven't got it with us," said Potter. "We need to go and get it."

"Okay," replied Leo. "We'll wait here."

Potter and Weasley walked quickly off, leaving Leo and Marisa alone and free to talk.


	62. The Polyjuice Potion, Part Four

"That was… interesting," said Leo slowly. "I don't get why he's so convinced I'm Slytherin's heir."

"Well, I guess… your parents…" Marisa knew from past experience that Leo's parents were a touchy subject with him; she chose her words carefully to avoid offending him. "It's easy for people to assume…"

"That I'm like them?" asked Leo sharply.

"Well – yes."

"They never even raised me – if I'd grown up with them, I could understand it, but…"

"There's the Malfoys, though…"

"Yeah, the Weasleys and the Malfoys really don't like each other, and I guess I'm sort of a Malfoy? But that doesn't mean I'm like them. I don't think it's fair to judge me based on incomplete information."

"If I wanted to say you're the Heir of Slytherin, I'd say it's because you're… cold and calculating and potentially manipulative and…"

"I've got the message," said Leo, rolling his eyes. "I don't know whether to be flattered or offended."

They grinned at each other.

"What do you plan to do with the Polyjuice Potion, then?" asked Leo.

"Not sure, but I think it would come in handy…"

"I say we experiment with it to find out exactly how it works. How much you need, whether half the dose wears off more quickly or not…"

"But what if we need to use it?" asked Marisa.

"If Granger can brew it, why can't you?" replied Leo. "You know, brewing our own potions might not be a bad idea. We could pick up ingredients in Diagon Alley in the holidays, and there's a better place for brewing potions than a bathroom…"

"You mean the _secret_ place?" asked Marisa.

"Yes. Obviously."

Marisa smiled and nodded. "Sounds like a good idea. By the way, I just had an idea about what to use the Potion for." Something in her grin told Leo that it was an insane idea.

"What?"

"You know the Christmas party we're having with the Leopards who are still here?"

Leo realised what her idea was. He blinked. "You're saying we go as each other?"

"Yes."

"That's crazy."

"I dare you to do it," said Marisa.

Leo didn't reply. Marisa was about to ask if he was chicken when they heard footsteps and spun around to see Potter and Weasley approaching, now with Granger as well.

"We've made a decision," said Potter. "We'll give you the Potion, but only if you don't demand anything else, and if you tell us what _you _know about the Chamber, and how you found out about our plans."

Leo glanced at Marisa, who nodded. Granger seemed to have talked some sense into them, at least, and this was a fair enough deal.

"Okay," said Leo. "We have a deal. I know what you know, because Marisa overheard you plotting in the bathroom the day after the Quidditch match. We also saw Granger stealing ingredients from Professor Snape's office."

"By the way, you stole my idea with the firework," added Marisa.

"There are a few other things we know," added Leo. "Lucius Malfoy told us that the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened was fifty years ago, and Dobby is his house-elf. And we did some research with the geanology books and found the only known descendants of Slytherin are the Gaunt family, none of whom were at Hogwarts at the right time as far as we know."

"Dobby is the _Malfoys' _house-elf?" asked Potter incredulously.

Leo nodded. "Anyway," he said, "that's about all we know, so… the Potion, please?"

Potter placed two small vials into his outstretched hand. "See you around?" he asked, looking as if he certainly didn't want to.

"Maybe," replied Leo.

Potter, Weasley and Granger left, very quickly.

"Shall we take these two back to the common room?" asked Marisa. "Or shall we leave them here?"

"I say leave them," replied Leo. "Maybe it'll teach them a lesson. Probably not, of course, but…"

"Okay," replied Marisa. "Let's go!"

They walked quickly back to their common room together, both smiling.


	63. Becoming Each Other

About an hour later, the second-year boys' dormitory was almost quiet, and to an outside observer would have appeared deserted. Draco was downstairs, playing cards with some of the third-years, Vincent and Gregory still hadn't woken from the Sleeping Draught, and Theo had gone home for the holidays.

However, behind the curtains of Leo's bed, two thirteen-year-olds were sitting cross-legged, each holding a single vial of mud-coloured, bubbling liquid.

"Hair," said Leo softly, uncorking his vial.

Marisa reached up to her head, pulled off a single gold-coloured hair and dropped it into Leo's vial. Immediately the potion changed from the colour of mud to a deep black, tinged with gold flecks.

"Your turn," she said to Leo, who dropped one of his own dark hairs into her vial.

This time, the potion turned a pale grey: it didn't look particularly appetising, but it had a strange sort of shimmering quality to it.

"You drink first," said Leo.

"No, you first," replied Marisa.

"We'll do it together," Leo decided. "Ready – three, two, one – "

Marisa raised the vial to her lips, tilted her head back and gulped it down in one go. It tasted odd: there was an overwhelming sharpness to it, stronger than even a lime, which made her blink furiously, but before she could even register that she felt a horrible pain; she was certain she would be sick – her entire body was burning – then she felt almost as if she was bubbling and melting.

As she clutched her knees, gasping, she felt her body changing: she saw her fingers becoming slightly thicker, her skin becoming just a touch paler – she was shooting upwards, unnaturally tall – her legs were becoming longer.

Then it stopped. She blinked as she saw that she was sitting opposite herself. Leo looked exactly like her. It felt unbelievably weird looking down on herself from just a little higher.

"This feels _so _weird," she said – but it was Leo's crisp, precise voice that came out of her mouth.

"We should probably swap clothes," said Leo in Marisa's own voice, practical as ever. "People are going to notice something when they see a boy in skirt and tights and a girl in trousers."

The Hogwarts uniforms were slightly different for boys and girls.

Marisa nodded. "No looking at my underwear," she said as she pulled off her skirt and tights. "Your legs are really hairy!" She could imagine the look on Leo's face without having to look at him, and then realised that it was actually her own face.

She caught the pair of smart black trousers that Leo tossed her. Her first reaction was to think that they would be too big for her, but then she realised that Leo's body was a lot bigger than hers and in fact they would fit perfectly, so she pulled them on.

"Shall we go… Marisa?" she asked, already putting on her act for the benefit of the others.

"Certainly, Leo," replied Leo, smiling slightly, and the pair walked out of the dormitory and downstairs to the common room.


	64. Christmas Party, Part One

The Slytherin Snow Leopards who were attending the party were all gathered together. There were only four of them, including Leo and Marisa; the other two were Tracey and a shy-looking first-year boy.

"Where are we going?" asked Tracey.

"Somewhere secret," replied Marisa, trying to sound as much like Leo as possible. "But first, we need to meet the Ravenclaws."

There were only ten minutes left before curfew, so the students left the common room and proceeded up the stairs with extreme caution. Thankfully, they reached the statue on the third floor where the two halves of the group had arranged to meet without any incident.

There were five Ravenclaws still at Hogwarts: Terry, Morag and three first-years, two boys and a girl. They were clustered around the statue, trying to look as unsuspicious as possible, which was quite difficult when there were only five minutes until they had to be in their common rooms and none of them looked to be doing anything in particular.

"Hello," said Terry. "Are you going to tell us where we're going now?"

Marisa was momentarily surprised that he was addressing this question to her rather than Leo, but then she realised that as far as he was concerned, he _was _addressing it to Leo.

"I told you, it's a secret," she said. "Follow me!"

Marisa was not good with directions, and navigating Hogwarts was quite a challenge for her, so she was a little worried about leading the entire group to the Room of Requirement without assistance, but she still set off confidently down the corridor.

"Which way?" she asked in an undertone to Leo, who had moved alongside her.

"Left at the statue of Boris the Bewildered," replied Leo. "Then right, left and up three flights of stairs."

"Aren't those the ones that go somewhere different on Friday? I've lost track of days of the week a bit."

"They are. I'm pretty sure it's Tuesday today, though, so we'll be okay."

Marisa led the group (with directions from Leo) all the way to the seventh-floor corridor before gesturing to the wall. "Here we are!"

She smiled at everyone's shocked appearances and the questions: "What do you mean, here we are? It's just a piece of wall!"

Terry was trying to lift up the corner of the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy, wondering if there was something underneath. Tracey was trying to work out whether Leo and Marisa were just messing with them and there really was nothing here, and discussing this possibility with Morag. The first-years just stood there, not knowing what they were meant to do.

Marisa finally took pity on them and marched up and down three times, thinking _We need a place to party…_

A door appeared. She shot the others a smug look and turned the handle, inviting everyone inside with a theatrical gesture, which was safely a thing Leo would have done (announcing "Ta-da!", her first impulse, probably wouldn't have been).

Once everyone was in, she followed them and shut the door behind them.


	65. Christmas Party, Part Two

The Room had outdone itself. There was a wide, open floor with plenty of space for games, some Muggle music playing in the background, a stand filled with party-poppers and balloons and Christmas crackers… it was perfect.

"What is this place?" asked Tracey, gazing around in wonder. Even though Marisa had been there before, she couldn't help feeling the same.

"Right," she said. "What are we waiting for?"

She dashed over to the Christmas cracker stand (realising too late that Leo didn't really dash, he just walked quickly; luckily no-one seemed to notice), snatched up the crackers and walked at a more sedate pace back to the group.

With a little help from Leo, Marisa distributed the crackers so that they were arranged in a circle, each person having one end of two different crackers. Then she said "Three…two…one…"

Everyone pulled as hard as they could. There was a quick succession of loud bangs and the area around them filled with greyish-coloured smoke. When it cleared, much to her surprise, Marisa found that she was holding the middle sections of both of her crackers. Leo's body was quite a bit stronger than her own.

She looked around and saw a large group of white mice, which had clearly escaped from the crackers, scurrying across the floor. A vast array of different-coloured and -styled hats was spread across the floor. At first, Marisa wanted to jam a brightly-coloured one on her head, but then she remembered that Leo probably wouldn't choose the bonnet of red and blue flowers that caught her eye and grabbed a top hat instead.

Soon everyone was outfitted in their choice of hat. Marisa considered reading some of the jokes but decided that it was a waste of time and joined the scrum to select the best of the large variety of gifts on offer.

Once again, she found it hard to pick the gifts which Leo would have chosen, instead of the ones she wanted herself; eventually she managed to grab something labelled a "Basic Runic Inspection Kit". She didn't know the first thing about runes, but thought that Leo might have a clue what to do with it.

He shot her a stealthy thumbs-up, having grabbed a wizard chess set (Marisa, unlike Leo, still didn't have her own and had been playing with Daphne's borrowed set for the autumn. She still had yet to win a single game.)

She returned it with a slight smile, and once everyone had chosen their gift suggested a few rounds of Exploding Snap. Tracey pulled the cards out of her pocket and began to deal.

"How are you winning, Leo?" she asked after a few rounds, when Marisa had the largest pile of cards of anyone playing. "You always lose!"

"Maybe my luck's changing," replied Marisa with a mysterious smile of the sort she thought Leo might make in this situation. "I hope it is."

"I certainly don't!" Tracey replied. "If you're winning all the time, how am I ever meant to get anywhere?" She gestured at her (very small) pile of cards.

Marisa was distracted by a loud bang: a first-year Ravenclaw girl's pile had exploded. The girl in question looked mortified.

"Don't worry," said Tracey. "Happens to us all. Except Marisa."

Leo looked slightly nervous. "You jinxed it!" he said, but Marisa could see that he was actually worried that his luck wasn't as good as hers.

"Time," whispered Leo to her. She realised what he meant. "Still half an hour," she said in an undertone, tapping her wand on her pile and earning herself another card.


	66. Christmas Party, Part Three

Ten minutes later, the group were bored of Exploding Snap.

"Marisa," asked Tracey, "can you teach us some Muggle party games?"

Leo froze. Being a pure-blood, he didn't actually know any party games, but there was no way for him to refuse without admitting this fact. "I – uh – "

"Oh yeah, what's that one you told me about the other day?" asked Marisa, rushing in before Leo could flounder too much. "Musical chairs?"

"Yeah, that's a good one," said Leo, hiding his relief. "But we need chairs for that."

"Magic," replied Marisa, grinning and gesturing at the chairs which had just appeared around them. "Everyone, sit down!"

They did, and Marisa explained the rules of musical chairs (pretending she was a pure-blood who didn't fully understand it). After a little experimentation they discovered that it was as easy to take away the chairs as it had been to add them. In fact, the Room ran the entire game for them.

Morag narrowly managed to beat one of the first-years to win the game. It was so fun that they played three more rounds, which were won by Leo, Tracey and another first-year respectively.

Next someone suggested playing wizard chess. Thankfully for Marisa (who wasn't anywhere near as good at chess as Leo) this was quickly vetoed by Morag, who said that it would be too serious for a party.

With a meaningful glance at her watch for Leo's benefit, Marisa suggested a few rounds of hide-and-seek. Instantly the flat space morphed into a jumble of objects perfect for hiding behind, on top of, under and between.

"You seek first, Leo," said Terry.

"Uh – no, I – Tracey, why don't you?"

"Sure," replied Tracey, seemingly not worried by Marisa's wriggling out of it. "What shall I count to?"

"Twenty?" suggested Marisa.

"Okay. One, two, three…"

Leo and Marisa hurried off in the same direction, and soon found an old door and bookshelf with just enough room for the two of them underneath.

"Ten seconds," muttered Marisa. They stood in silence for a little while until Marisa felt her skin once again feel like it was bubbling, and began to shrink a little.

Marisa pulled off Leo's trousers and Leo her skirt, and they tossed them to each other. Marisa felt herself shrinking, and hair shooting out of her scalp and changing colour. She pulled her skirt back on the legs which were halfway between Leo's and her own, and then, to her relief, felt her body settle back to its normal state.

"That was… interesting," she said.

"This is my hiding place," said Leo, as they heard a shout of "Coming! Ready or not!".

"Good point," said Marisa. "If the others find us here together, they'll probably think we've been snogging or something."

"You make that sound like it's a bad thing."

Marisa felt herself blushing. "Okay, okay," she said (quietly, to avoid attracting Tracey's attention). "I'm going."

She darted cautiously out and looked around for a new place to hide herself, refusing to let her mind dwell on the implications of Leo's remark. They were allies, nothing more.

But as she slid into the gap beneath an old-fashioned writing desk, she couldn't quite stop herself from wondering.


	67. Valentine's Day

Just to apologise one more time for the disruption to updates last week. If you haven't already done so, go back to Chapter 65 and read that before this one.

Also, I'm going to be away IRL next week. I think I should be able to update as I have the chapter pre-written, but there's a possibility that the next update won't be until Sunday next week.

* * *

Leo and Marisa were not exactly happy to find out about Professor Lockhart's plans for a "morale booster" now that attacks seemed to have stopped.

"If you send me a Valentine," said Marisa, shooting Leo a Look over breakfast on Valentine's Day, "I will hit you with a Slug-Vomiting Curse every day for the rest of your life."

Leo hadn't been planning to send Marisa a Valentine, and was now even less likely to do so. "If you send me one," he replied coldly, "I will make your life as miserable as I possibly can in the numerous ways I possibly can."

Leo hadn't been able to think of a specific threat quickly enough, so he resorted to the generic. This, however, was not good enough for Marisa.

"What exactly are these 'numerous ways'?" she asked.

"I couldn't possibly tell you," said Leo, still short of ideas but refusing to back down. "They are personal secrets which I cannot reveal to anyone."

Marisa rolled her eyes. "I wasn't planning to send you one," she said, "but maybe now I will just to find out what ways you have of making my life miserable."

She was probably joking, but only probably. You never could quite tell with Marisa.

"You wouldn't," said Leo, but he was slightly worried.

"Wouldn't I?" asked Marisa.

Leo decided that the best response to this was to ignore her.

All through that day's classes, Valentines arrived. Neither Leo and Marisa received one all morning, although Daphne got one and spent half of Defence Against the Dark Arts (when they were re-enacting more of Lockhart's books; Leo and Marisa spent the time making gagging noises and trying to hit each other with Jelly-Legs Jinxes without anyone noticing) blushing furiously.

As they were on their way outside to Herbology, the Slytherins ran into Harry Potter, who appeared to be having an embarrassing incident involving a split bag, a dwarf with a harp and a gaggle of first-years.

Draco looked as if all his Christmases had come at once. "What's going on here?" he asked coldly, with a smile forming on his face.

The dwarf dragged Potter to the floor, sat on his ankles, and recited solemnly:

"_His eyes are as green as a fresh-pickled toad,_

_His hair is as dark as a blackboard._

_I wish he was mine, he's truly divine,_

_The hero who conquered the Dark Lord."_

Leo and Marisa burst out laughing as a prefect began to shepherd away some of the first-years. Draco stooped to pick up something: a diary. He showed it to Leo, Vincent and Gregory, and Leo recognised it as a diary.

"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" asked Draco, but Leo had noticed something: the year on the cover was fifty years ago.

"Draco," he said, "that's not – "

But he was interrupted by the prefect telling him sternly to hand it over.

"When I've had a look," replied Draco.

Leo was struck by a fresh realisation: fifty years ago was when the Chamber was last opened! This diary could have important evidence inside it! "Draco," he said urgently, "give me that diary."

"As a school prefect – "

"_Expelliarmus!_" To Leo's horror, Potter's Disarming Charm did its job and the diary soared away from the Slytherins and into Weasley's hand.

Draco was furious. "I don't think Potter liked your Valentine much!" he hissed spitefully to Ginny Weasley, who covered her face with her hands and hurried into class.

Leo glanced at Marisa, frustrated.

"Leo Asriel?" said a voice from behind Leo, and, horrified, he turned to see another dwarf heading his way. He shot Marisa a death glare.

"It wasn't me!" she protested. "Honestly, it wasn't!"

Leo wasn't sure if he believed her or not.

The dwarf recited:

"_Roses are red,_

_Violets are blue._

_Snow Leopards strong,_

_And so are you."_

That answered his question: Marisa would have at least put a bit more imagination into a Valentine. "If you didn't send it," asked Leo, "then who did?"

"I don't know…" replied Marisa slowly, turning to scrutinise each of the other Slytherins closely, looking for a slight difference in their expression which could reveal the guilty party.


	68. Quidditch, Diaries and Exploding Snap

That evening, the Slytherin Snow Leopards were playing Exploding Snap as usual. In the New Year they'd set up a tournament with a points system and leaderboard; so far Marisa was thrashing everyone else, leaving Daphne a distant second.

As they played, they discussed the day's developments. Leo had chosen to take the risk of telling Theo, Daphne and Tracey about the diary Potter had been carrying, wondering if they'd be able to shed any light on it, but none of them could. He observed their reactions closely and found no trace of any worry. He probably wasn't sitting with Slytherin's heir.

On the other hand, he was beginning to have some strong suspicions about the sender of his Valentine: Tracey Davis had been acting ever so slightly unlike herself around him for most of the day, and when he brought up the topic her denials were just a little too strong to be truthful.

But he said nothing about it to her and instead continued wondering what to do.

"I say we try and speak to Potter about the diary," said Marisa, tapping her wand on her pile and snatching a card from the central pile. "I'm sure I can persuade him to tell me more."

Leo had no doubts that Marisa could be extremely persuasive when she wanted to be.

"Do we actually know it has something to do with the Chamber?" asked Theo.

"Why else would Potter be carrying a fifty-year-old diary around with him?" replied Daphne scathingly.

"I don't know…" said Theo. "Maybe…"

But he was interrupted by the hulking figure of Marcus Flint. "King!" he said. "I've been wanting a word with you."

"Is it about the Quidditch team?" asked Marisa, instantly rearranging her expression into one of placid docility.

"Yes. The next match, of course, is against Ravenclaw in three weeks. I want you to be our Seeker then."

Marisa smiled. "Thank you so much! I promise you won't regret it!"

"Don't let me down," said Flint, and then turned to walk away. Marisa's calm, small smile immediately turned into an expression of pure triumph.

"Congratulations," said Leo. "I wish you luck. Although this won't do you any favours with Draco."

"Once I win Slytherin the match, Draco will realise that the House in general don't hate me as much as he thinks," said Marisa, smiling broadly.


	69. Plotting

"We need to get hold of that diary somehow," said Leo. He and Marisa had stayed up a little later than everyone else to plot in private as usual.

"How do you suggest we do it?" asked Marisa. "We don't know the password to the Gryffindor common room."

"So, we have three options," Leo said, counting them off on his fingers. "We find out the password, we bribe a Gryffindor to steal it for us or we ask Potter directly."

"None of those sound particularly favourable," Marisa replied. "Bribery probably won't work, particularly if people are still willing to think you're Slytherin's heir. We can't trust any of the Gryffindors. People will get suspicious And I doubt Potter will willingly give us the diary or tell us what's in it."

Leo sighed. "Valid points," he admitted.

"We could tell a teacher and ask them to take it?"

He rolled his eyes. "You think they'll pay any attention to us?"

"It's worth a try, isn't it?"

"No," insisted Leo. "We are not telling a teacher about this under any circumstances. We've been over this before, they won't listen unless we have solid evidence, which we don't."

Marisa nodded reluctantly. "So, what you're saying is that we have no options."

"Basically, yes."

"Great," she said. "I might sleep on it, see if any ideas show up." She got to her feet.

"Night," said Leo.

"See you tomorrow," replied Marisa, walking off towards the stairs that led to the girls' dormitories.


	70. The Next Two Months

The next few months were fairly uneventful. Leo and Marisa tried to get slowly closer to Potter and his friends, but they didn't want to ask about the diary directly in case it aroused suspicion and there were few reasons for Gryffindors and Slytherins to be having civil conversation.

As the date of the Slytherin against Ravenclaw Quidditch match drew ever closer, Marisa spent more and more time on her broom, flying until every muscle in her body ached from pure exhaustion in her determination to show her House what she was capable of.

She'd also begun her secret potion-brewing in the Room of Requirement, aided and abetted by Leo, who was responsible for smuggling ingredients into Hogwarts by any means he could. So far there were cauldrons in her room containing Polyjuice, Antidote to Common Poisons and Confusing Concoction.

The Snow Leopards, under Leo's direction, were learning more and more advanced spells. Already they'd covered all of the second-year Defence spells and revised most of the Charms curriculum, as well as dabbling a little, very cautiously, in Transfiguration. Leo had ordered books for third-year spells and was hard at work learning them himself so that he could teach the others.

Under the pressure of trying to do so many things at once, Marisa's grades were beginning to slip. She was still top of the class at Potions and was having little trouble with Charms, but her Transfiguration was weaker than it could have been and History of Magic, in particular, she was getting dangerously close to failing. Leo took pity on her and allowed her to copy some of his essays, of course changing them just enough not to be seen as plagiarism.

He, of course, was keeping on top of his own workload with ease. Not having to worry about Quidditch or doing as much potion-brewing as Marisa, he didn't have quite as much to do as she did, but between organising revision, learning new spells and keeping up with his homework there was remarkably little time left in his schedule.

There had been no more attacks. No amount of speculation from the Snow Leopards had been enough to find a definite reason for this, although there were plenty of ideas: The Heir was worried about being caught. Something had happened which made it harder for them to attack (although what this could be, no-one knew).

That was how things were for the rest of February, and all of March and April, until it came to time to select their options to take up the next year.

Marisa stared curiously down at the list of options: Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Divination, Muggle Studies, Study of Ancient Runes… She didn't know where to start. Actually, she did: by getting some advice from Leo.

"What even are some of these classes?" she asked him.

"Arithmancy… that's sort of using numbers to predict and calculate and analyse things like personalities, like the future… it's more accurate than it sounds, but quite complicated. I'm doing it. Care of Magical Creatures… exactly what it sounds like. Divination is a different kind of predicting the future, by doing things like reading tea leaves and crystal balls. I don't think it's very accurate. Muggle Studies… again, what it sounds like… you won't need to take that, of course… and Ancient Runes is really interesting. It's like understanding the past through another language."

"What are you taking?"

"Arithmancy, Care of Magical Creatures, Ancient Runes."

That was Marisa's decision made: she ticked those three boxes. That done, she sat back and listened to the other Slytherins discussing their options.

"My dad says I should take Arithmancy," said Draco, "but I think I prefer Divination, Arithmancy sounds a bit too complicated."

"I'm a bit nervous about the practical side of Magical Creatures, but I think it would probably be worth it." This was Tracey to Daphne, who was asking her about her choices.

"How many are you expected to take?" asked Vincent.

"You have to take at least one," explained Leo patiently, but with a quick roll of his eyes at Marisa, "but you can do as many as you like."

"Do you think I should take Muggle Studies?" Marisa recognised Theo's voice. "I don't think my parents will like it."

"Don't bother," advised Leo, "it's a waste of time. You can learn far more about Muggles by just asking someone with first-hand experience."

This thoughtless remark instantly increased the tension in the room.

"Why would you need to learn about Muggles, anyway?" asked Draco. "What's the point?"

No-one answered. Marisa could sense Leo's frustration, arguments for learning about Muggles brimming inside his head, but he was unable to voice any of them for the sake of being tactful and not raising suspicions.

Eventually everyone had filled in their slips of paper and handed them back in to Professor Snape, who glanced through them with mild interest before exiting, cloak billowing out behind him.


	71. The Quidditch Match

The next major event was the Quidditch match between Gryffindor and Hufflepuff. Almost everyone had gone to watch, even the Ravenclaws and Slytherins, and the Snow Leopards were no exception. They found seats as a group, near the back of the stadium, and made themselves comfortable.

"What spell are we going to learn next week, Leo?" asked Terry Boot.

Leo took a break from staring vacantly into space to reply "I was thinking of going back over _Fumos _to check we've all mastered it, and if we have time moving on to the Sticking Charm."

"Can we stick people to each other?" asked Theo eagerly.

"Depends who."

"You and Marisa. Actually, there's no need, you're stuck together already. Talking of which, where - ?"

"What's Professor McGonagall doing?" asked Tracey suddenly, pointing down to the pitch.

Leo followed her finger until his gaze landed on the teacher in question: she appeared to be running across the pitch, carrying a large purple megaphone.

"This match has been cancelled!" she called. "All students are to make their way back to the House common rooms, where their Heads of Houses will give them further information. As quickly as you can, please!"

Leo's heart sank. He realised what Theo had been about to ask and felt his entire body turn icy cold. "Where's Marisa?"

She wasn't there. Everyone looked around for her, as if hoping she'd magically appear.

"She said," began Daphne hesitantly, "she was going to the library because she was behind on homework."

"Oh, God," said Tracey, "she's been attacked, hasn't she?"

Leo spun round and pushed past the others to the end of the row. He dashed down the steps as fast as he could and tore out of the stadium, in time to catch up to Professor McGonagall, who had Potter and Weasley in tow and was leading them up towards the castle.

"Professor – " he panted – "has there been another attack?"

"Yes," she said gently. "Another _triple _attack."

He knew, in that moment, if he hadn't before, that his suspicions were right. But he had to ask, to be sure. "Who is it?"

She didn't answer.

"It's Marisa, isn't it?"

Once again, there was no answer, but her silence confirmed his worst fears. Sure enough, when they reached the infirmary, they saw three girls lying on the beds: a blonde-haired Ravenclaw prefect, Hermione Granger, and Marisa.

He heard Potter and Weasley's groans as they stared at their friend, but he had eyes only for Marisa. She lay there, eyes open but glassy, not moving a millimetre. She looked so young and vulnerable like this. The expression on her face was one Leo was intimately familiar with: biting her lip, worried and impatient.

Professor McGonagall held up a small, circular mirror, saying it had been found on the floor next to them. Leo filed it away under the heading of Possible Clues, in the small part of his brain which wasn't shocked and horrified, but shook his head when asked for an explanation.

"I will escort you back to Gryffindor Tower," she said to Potter and Weasley. "I need to address the students, in any case. Asriel, can I trust you to return to your common room alone?"

"Yes," said Leo quietly. "But could I please stay for a few minutes?"

"I – I suppose so," said Professor McGonagall, lip wobbling a little. "But make sure you are back in your common room by eleven-thirty."

"Yes, Professor," said Leo, in the same quiet, numb tone. He waited until she was gone before climbing up onto the bed next to Marisa. He placed his hand in front of her face, checking for breathing, and then felt her wrist for a pulse. Nothing at all.

She could have been dead.

"Marisa?" he whispered. "Can you hear me?"

No response. He had expected none: it was pointless and childish to speak to her like this.

"I don't know what's going on right now. I don't know if you're conscious, or what's happening inside. But if you can hear me, then – " he glanced anxiously around to make sure no-one was listening. "I swear I will find whoever did this to you, and I will make them pay."

He felt better the moment he'd said those words. Now he had a purpose for all his grief and anger. And he'd have her back, sooner or later. It would be all right.


	72. Lockdown

Except, of course, it was nowhere near that simple. Hogwarts was in lockdown. Other than for lessons and meals, students couldn't leave their common rooms at all. This was all perfectly understandable and sensible and all that (except for the little voice in his head which told him Slytherin's monster could just kill everyone at once this way) but it was very frustrating for Leo in several ways.

Quite apart from his instinctive hatred of any restrictions on his personal freedom, it made it an awful lot harder for him to follow up the one lead he had on the whole mystery: there were no opportunities to speak to Potter.

The latest news didn't exactly cheer him up: Hagrid had been arrested and sent to Azkaban and Professor Dumbledore had been suspended as Headmaster. From the smile on Draco's face, Leo got a strong sense that Lucius Malfoy had something to do with this.

In the end, after a week's frustration which practically drove him insane, he cornered the Boy-Who-Lived at the end of Double Potions.

"I need to know about the diary," he said urgently, as they were led by Professor Snape out of the dungeon.

"What diary?" asked Potter. Leo couldn't tell if this was genuine confusion or if he was bluffing.

"The fifty-year-old diary," said Leo impatiently. "The one in your bag on Valentine's Day. Draco might be blind, but I'm not. It's important in some way. I need it."

"Even if I wanted to give it to you, which I don't," said Potter, "I can't, because it's been stolen."

Leo tried not to show his astonishment. "When?" he asked quickly. "No – wait – don't tell me – the day of the last attacks." It was only a hunch, but it was correct.

"How did you know that?"

"Guessed," replied Leo. Another idea had sprung to mind. "That voice you've been hearing in the walls – what's it been saying?"

"Why – wait – can you read minds or something?"

Leo smiled to himself. Another suspicion confirmed: Slytherin's monster was a snake of some kind. Marisa had been right. He made a mental note to thank her when she woke up. "Can you at least tell me about the diary? Whose is it? What does it say?"

But before Potter could decide whether to answer, they arrived at the Charms classroom and Leo had to file in with his fellow Slytherins, away from any chance of getting what he needed.


	73. Breaking Point

Three days later, Leo had an idea of how it must feel to be imprisoned. It was driving him mad. With no access to the library, he couldn't research any more spells, or follow up on any of the Chamber leads. With no access to the grounds, there could be no more Snow Leopards meetings. With the six o'clock curfew in place, he couldn't go to the Room of Requirement to check on Marisa's potions, some of which must have been completely spoiled by now.

But the worst thing of all was that there was no Marisa.

The attack on her had affected the rest of the group greatly. There was an air of paranoia around them. None of them had been afraid before, because they were Slytherins, they were safe. But now they knew the monster wouldn't hesitate to harm someone from Salazar's own house.

They played Exploding Snap obsessively, because none of them had anything better to do. They were sick to death of the game before long, but there was a determination to take advantage of Marisa's absence and overtake her on the leaderboard. With the formidable advantage she'd built up, this was no easy feat, particularly when every time one of them got close the pack exploded and they lost a hundred points.

Leo spent as much time as he could focusing on his homework. He wrote twice as much as he needed to for most of the essays, even to the point when Professor McGonagall told him he didn't need to write that much.

"I can't stand this any longer," he said finally on Tuesday evening. There were still three days until Double Potions. "We have to do something."

"No," said Theo, "_you _have to do something. I don't have to do anything, and nor does Daphne or Tracey."

"Fine," said Leo. "If you don't care about Marisa, then don't do anything. I have to do something. Does anyone want to help?"

"I'll help you," said Tracey. "As long as it won't get us in trouble."

Leo suspected that Tracey had ulterior motives for wanting to help him, but right now he really couldn't be bothered to deal with that kind of thing. "Well, the only plans I have all kind of involve sneaking out, so… yeah, it will get us in trouble. If we get caught. Which I don't plan to do, but…"

"You can't sneak out! You'd probably get expelled!" said Daphne, aghast.

"Are you seriously considering that? Please tell me you're joking," Theo added.

In that moment he missed Marisa more than ever. She wouldn't have been horrified and reluctant and refusing to help. She would have agreed and got to work on a plan for how to do it straight away.

"Look, we all miss her," Theo said hesitantly. "We all like her, and we all want her back. But she's going to come back as soon as the Mandrakes are ready. If sneaking out meant the difference between saving her and not… I'd do it, but now? What good is it going to do?"

"It could solve the mystery," said Leo, coldly furious, "and prevent more people from being attacked."

"What do we care?" asked Theo. "We're all safe. Slytherin's monster would never come near any of us."

"And that's all you care about?" asked Leo, instinctively getting to his feet. "You don't care about all the Muggle-borns in Gryffindor and Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff who are afraid for their lives? You don't care if one of them dies? They could close Hogwarts if there's another attack, Theo! Don't you at least care about that?"

"Of course – it's not – do you really think -?"

"No," said Leo furiously, not stopping for one second to think about what he was saying: all his anger and frustration from these last ten days was boiling over. "You don't care, do you? You don't care about Marisa, you don't care about Hogwarts, you don't care about anyone other than yourself!"

Theo had reached breaking point. He stood up, too, and replied, "Don't lie! I do care! I'm not the one who has a problem, it's you! You care too much! It's always Marisa this, Marisa that, I don't see what's so special about that girl, she's just a – " He fell silent at the look on Leo's face.

Leo knew, as everyone did, what the next word would have been: _Mudblood._ "Just a what?" he asked, voice trembling with anger, one hand reaching for his wand, the other clenched into a fist.

Theo didn't usually have the tact to back down in these situations, but this was different. He had never seen Leo this angry before.

"Just a Mudblood." It was not Theo who had spoken, but Draco, who had been drawn over by the raised voices.

"Marisa," said Leo, completely forgetting every resolution he had ever made about not showing Draco his true opinions, "is not just a Mudblood. She is so much more than that."

"Oh, really?" asked Draco sarcastically. "I hadn't noticed."

"Isn't it obvious?" spat Leo. "She's better than you at Quidditch – have you even seen her on a broom? Even I can tell she's a born flyer! – and her grades are better than yours and she's a thousand times smarter than you!"

Draco's mouth flew open in shock and outrage at this, but he was stopped from saying anything by the look in Leo's eyes, which was genuinely terrifying. It made all the Slytherins flinch from him and avert their eyes from his terrible gaze.

There was a long moment of silence, broken only by a muffled sob from someone. Leo was too furious to care who. Eventually he turned and strode upstairs to his dormitory without a word to anyone.


	74. Romantic Cluelessness

The next morning, Leo didn't wake up until seven o'clock. Considering that he usually woke at quarter to six, this was extremely unusual for him. He almost considered staying in bed, he had so little enthusiasm for the day which was coming.

Eventually he dragged himself downstairs to the common room to be met by Daphne, who was fiddling with the bunch which held her long blonde hair in a ponytail.

"Morning," he said. "Shall we head down to breakfast?"

"Not just yet, Leo, we need to talk."

"About what?"

"Tracey."

"What does she have to do with anything?"

"She was crying last night," said Daphne, making the words sound like an accusation.

Leo felt like he was missing something. He didn't understand what Tracey's being upset about something had to do with him. "About what?" asked Leo again.

Daphne sighed. "Leo, I never thought I'd be in a position to call you an idiot, but right now you are being one."

He was beginning to feel as if she might be right. "I still don't get it."

"Fine," said Daphne, with an air of long-suffering patience. "I'll spell it out. Tracey has a crush on you."

"I know," said Leo, "but why – "

"Tracey thinks that this is her opportunity to get closer to you. She is very annoyed that you are still obsessed with – "

Finally, the penny dropped. "She thinks – Marisa and I – but that's – we're not – we're not – "

Daphne smiled. She seemed about to say something but hesitated before saying, "Well, you've certainly given Tracey the impression that you are."

"I don't care," snapped Leo.

"She does," replied Daphne. "And so do I. How do you think it makes me feel, being the one who has to deal with this? I suppose you don't think about that, do you? You don't care about anyone other than yourself and Marisa!"

"That's not true – " said Leo haltingly, "I didn't mean to upset her – it's not my fault if she decides to take offence at everything I say."

"No," Daphne admitted, "but you can try and be a bit more tactful around her. Please? It isn't just you this is hard for, it's everyone. Don't make it any worse than it already is."

"All right," admitted Leo grudgingly.


	75. Talking to No-one

That day at lunchtime, he asked Professor McGonagall for permission to visit Marisa, expecting to be denied immediately. To his surprise, however, Professor McGonagall granted his request immediately, adding only that he should make sure to get to class on time.

Feeling slightly less awful and enjoying the chance to finally be alone, he wolfed down his lunch and ran nearly all of the way to the hospital wing. After a minute wasted persuading Madam Pomfrey to let him in, he was finally allowed to enter the room.

He sat down on the bed beside Marisa, who hadn't moved a single millimetre since he'd last seen her. "Marisa," he said quietly. "I know this is probably a waste of time and you won't be able to hear me, but I need to talk to you anyway. Things have been awful ever since you've been gone. I miss my partner in crime. The others are nice, but they're just not… you."

He sighed, and stared at her for a long moment. "I can't investigate. I know I promised you I'd find them, but I don't see how I can when I can barely even get out of the common room. None of the others would help me, Theo was furious when I asked them and Tracey's upset because – "

He hesitated. Did he really want to tell her this, even if she couldn't hear him? Wouldn't giving it words make it real? "Because she thinks that – that you and me are – a couple. That we – love each other." There. He'd said it now. It was out in the open.

"And… Daphne seems to agree. I denied it, but I get the feeling she's just humouring me because she doesn't want to make me angry. It feels like everyone except me is convinced we're together. It's making me wonder…"

A thought suddenly struck him. "Sorry, I just had this horrible feeling you're actually awake all this time and just pretending to be Petrified so you can find out how I really feel about you. I know it's ridiculous and implausible, but I could definitely imagine you doing that."

He rolled his eyes at the thought of that happening. "Can Petrified people hear anything, anyway?" he asked. "I've always assumed they can't, but what if they can? Can you hear me? If you can, and you have any way of moving or signalling that you can, do something."

Marisa didn't do anything, not unsurprisingly.

"But… anyway, I don't want to talk about that kind of thing. I'd much rather talk about something interesting. Except there's nothing interesting to talk about, because there's nothing happening. Well, there's lessons, of course, but I can't imagine even you would be that interested in my latest Charms essay."

He lapsed into silence, and stared at Marisa, and wished that she would wake up.


	76. Darkness

Marisa was trapped. Imprisoned inside her own body. It was like something out of a horror movie, except it was actually happening to her. When would the Mandrake be ready? How much longer would she have to bear this?

She was falling through the air, nothing at all around her except, for some bizarre reason, a golden monkey clinging to her shoulder and a kind of light falling with her, almost the same colour as the monkey's fur. She knew she was missing something important, but what?

She knew, now, how Lyra must have felt under the influence of the drugs she'd given her. Asleep, worried she'd never be able to wake up. At times unsure whether she was waking or dreaming. Trying to hold onto the thoughts that floated through her mind, knowing they must mean something, unable to pin them down.

An older Leo, standing on the roof of the world, holding her in his arms. The look of regret and pain and sorrow in his eyes when she refused him, and the way he never once looked back.

A silver blade, poised to cut. A girl, curled up in horror, and it was Lyra, she had to stop it, there had to be some way to save her from the bomb, even if it meant sacrificing herself.

A maid standing in front of her, and from the expression on her face, she knew at once it was bad news. Someone had killed someone else, but what this meant, she couldn't understand.

Leo was there, leaning over her, he was saying something, but she couldn't hear him, couldn't say anything, how could she still be alive without control over her body? Was this insanity?

The huge bright yellow eyes, reflected in Granger's mirror, the eyes of the monster they had tamed to purge the world of heretics. But she was no heretic, she was one of them, why were they hurting her?

Where was Leo? She needed him, he was the only one who could help her, but he wasn't there, there was just a snow leopard that spoke in his voice and told her he wouldn't give her a second thought if she didn't do what he wanted, and she couldn't, it was too much to ask, she belonged in this world, not where he was going…

The girl was no good, she'd left it too late, her daughter was nothing but a rough, uncultured savage and she'd never be able to turn her into what she wanted. She was Leo's daughter, not Marisa's, and maybe that was a better thing for her to be.

She was soaring through the air on her broom, there were others around her on different, less well-made brooms, arms bare despite the cold which tore at Marisa's bones, and she knew she could never truly fly like them, she was only a mortal, a short-life, her magic was nothing compared to theirs.

_"Marisa… Marisa…"_ Someone was calling her. Was it Leo? Or Asriel? Or were they one and the same? "Leo…" she tried to call, but the words didn't come out at all, because she was still trapped, and he was begging her to answer but there was nothing she could do…

The abyss was everywhere, in her mind and around her body. She could never escape it.


	77. The Library

The next day, Leo decided to ask permission to go to the library with the others to do some research (apparently for homework, but really to try and find some information, any information, which would help him solve the riddle of the Chamber).

Once again, to his surprise, Professor Snape granted permission for all four of them. Tracey, Theo and Daphne were not exactly enthusiastic to come along, but they were hoping to avoid another explosion like the one of the night before last.

"You guys do homework," said Leo, "I just need to look something up…" He headed directly to the section on magical creatures and began frantically searching through a copy of _Magical Creatures of our World_. There were no snakes in that book which fitted his requirement, so he moved onto a book which was somewhat Darker in tone and so more likely to contain what he needed: _Most Macabre Monstrosities_.

He speed-read this for seven hundred pages and found nothing at all of any use – until he reached page seven hundred and twenty-four, which had been torn out and was nowhere to be seen.

"Seriously?" muttered Leo. He was certain that this was the page he would have wanted, and that someone (most likely Slytherin's heir) had torn it out deliberately to prevent other people from figuring out what the monster was. They had certainly succeeded in that.

He tried to remember if he had ever seen a copy of the book somewhere before. It was the sort of thing which quite likely would have been in the Malfoys' library, but even Leo's memory had faults and he couldn't remember every book he'd ever read.

Maybe he should send an owl to Lucius and Narcissa? But he rejected that idea in seconds: if the Malfoys had something to do with the Chamber, they wouldn't be pleased to know that he was investigating.

So, once again, he was left with no options… until a flash of inspiration struck him. He picked up the book, tried to ignore his sense of impending doom, and went to find Madam Pince.

"Yes?" she said in a distinctively hostile tone.

"This book has a page ripped out of it," said Leo.

It took precisely one second for the inevitable explosion to occur. "Filth! Desecration! Outrage! Who has committed this terrible crime?"

"I don't know," said Leo. "I was rather hoping that you'd be able to find out. Did you see who had this book last?"

Madam Pince, a furious expression on her face, stormed off to check the library's records. A minute or two later she returned to announce, "The book was last borrowed in June last year by Theodore Nott."

Leo raised his eyebrows a little at this. "But… someone could have – ripped the page out in the library without necessarily borrowing it… I'd think someone would have noticed before now if it happened last term…"

"Leave it with me, Asriel," snapped Madam Pince. "I will investigate."

"Okay," said Leo. He wasn't about to push his luck, so he handed the book to Madam Pince and left to speak to Theo about it.


	78. Talking to Theo

Starting from next week, I'm changing update day to Thursday as I expect to be busy IRL on Wednesdays.

* * *

"Theo?"

"Yeah?" asked Theo. "Can I have some help with this Transfiguration essay?"

"Sure. Can you just tell me something first?" Leo was in no mood to be subtle, so went for a direct approach. "Have you ever heard of a book called _Most Macabre Monstrosities?_"

He watched his friend's reaction closely, but there was no sign of a flinch or obvious reaction as there would be from Slytherin's heir, if his suspicions were correct.

Instead, Theo merely looked puzzled. "I… think I might have used it to look something up last year…?"

It seemed that Theo was clear of suspicion, at least for now. Leo hadn't finished with him, though. There was still a chance that he could know something useful. "Did you look at page seven hundred and twenty-four? Can you remember what was on it?"

Theo shrugged. "You can look yourself if you want to, can't you? Anyway, do you expect me to memorise the page numbers?"

"It might be useful. Page seven hundred and twenty-four is in the section on snakes."

Theo shook his head. "I was looking up some plants. I didn't go anywhere near that section."

Leo nodded: with Theo's speciality being Herbology, this was plausible and probably true. Still, it was another possible lead gone. "Do you know anyone who has a copy of that book?" he asked.

"No. What's so important about it, anyway?"

"There was a page ripped out," said Leo. "I was trying to figure out if you knew what was on it."

Theo might not have been the intellectual equal of Leo or Marisa, but he was certainly not stupid and was able to put two and two together. "Is this about the Chamber?" he asked. "Snakes… you're saying someone's torn out a page which could have the actual monster of Slytherin on it?"

Leo nodded grimly. "Sorry for suspecting you. I'm fairly sure you didn't do it. But you see how important this is?"

Theo nodded. "I see how important it is to you… but…" He was clearly worried Leo would blow up. "I think you're getting obsessed with this. You're taking it too far. I mean, Potter or someone I could understand, but… you're a Slytherin, Leo."

Leo wasn't quite at breaking point, not just yet. Enough of his mind was still occupied with this new clue that he couldn't focus too much on Theo's words. "I am," he said. "Which means I'm ruthless, ambitious, cunning. I'll do anything to get what I want, and what I want right now is to find out who is the Heir of Slytherin and put a stop to them."

"Why would you want to stop them?"

"Because I don't want people to die. _Any _people, Muggle-born or not."

By this time, Daphne and Tracey were listening intently.

Theo seemed to hesitate. He didn't quite know what to say. "But… this isn't about that, is it? It's just about Marisa."

"Yes, I care about Marisa," said Leo. His voice was calm and level, and quieter than usual, but you didn't have to know him to recognise the deadly undertone. "I also care about Hogwarts, and about preventing anyone from dying unnecessarily. Do you care about those things?"

It sounded ordinary, but it was unmistakably a challenge, possibly even a threat.

"Of – of course," said Theo. "But these people – they're just Mu-ggle borns." With an enormous effort, he managed to prevent himself from using the word _Mudblood._

That still didn't please Leo very much. "When Marisa wakes up, I'm telling her everything you said. See if you still think she's "just a Muggle-born" when she's hexed you into a million pieces. Or I might just do it myself."

Theo had no doubt at all that Leo meant exactly what he said. He cringed. "You don't need to do that," he said.

"Don't I?" asked Leo.

"No – I don't think they're not worthy of protection, but I don't think there's really that much you can do for them – "

"Not much I can do?" asked Leo incredulously. "Haven't I already made some progress? I've found this missing page, I have other leads I can follow, I can solve this mystery! I just need a bit more time!"

"Whatever," said Theo, with a shrug. "While you're waiting, can you help with my essay?"


	79. Realisations

In the next day's Double Potions lesson, Leo went straight over to Potter and Weasley. "Look, before you say anything, I have some information in return for what you can tell me about the diary."

"What?" asked Potter sceptically.

"There's a book called _Most Macabre Monstrosities_, and page seven hundred and twenty-four has been torn out."

"Uh – what does that have to do with anything?" asked Weasley.

"It was in the section on snakes," Leo explained patiently.

"You think someone ripped it out to hide it?" Weasley guessed, at the same time as Potter said "You don't think _Hermione _could have – "

But before they had a chance to say anything more, Professor Snape swept into the dungeon and Leo had to return to his desk to avoid being caught fraternising with Gryffindors.

One of the many worst things about Marisa being gone was that he had lost his Potions partner – and what was worse, Theo wasn't speaking to him and had partnered with Draco, which left Leo with _Vincent_ as a brewing partner.

That meant he had to do nearly all of the work as Vincent couldn't be trusted not to explode something. And he was hardly on top potion-brewing form today: he didn't have the knack Marisa had of knowing exactly how you were supposed to chop things and add ingredients to the cauldron, even on the best of days, and this was not the best of days

Still, he thought he might have scraped an E, and there were more important things to worry about. For instance, what Potter had said about Granger.

Professor Snape was meant to be taking the Gryffindors to Defence Against the Dark Arts and Slytherins to Herbology, but Potter and Weasley were hanging back, and Leo slipped back to join them. "Well?" he asked impatiently.

"Hospital wing," said Potter. "To find out if my guess is right."

"I'm coming with you," said Leo.

Neither of them objected, perhaps because they were still slightly worried about the Polyjuice incident, although Weasley looked as if he wanted to.

For once, Leo was in luck, as they managed to reach the hospital wing without being caught, and even persuade Madam Pomfrey to let them in (he _might _have lied and told her they had permission). Feeling slightly awkward, he sat on Marisa's bed while Potter and Weasley dashed over to Granger.

"Hey, Marisa," he said quietly, not wanting to be overheard. "I think we might be onto something. They're finally listening to me, and I reckon if we put our heads together, we can actually solve this."

He was smiling for the first time in days.


	80. Basilisk

"Yes!" hissed Potter. "I think this is it!"

Leo dashed over to find that they'd managed to pull a page from Granger's grip. It was quite clearly page seven hundred and twenty-four of _Most Macabre Monstrosities._ He began to read:

_Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or more deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This __snake, __which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds of years, is born from a chicken's egg, hatched beneath a__toad__. Its methods of killing are most wondrous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. __Spiders __flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the__rooster__, which is fatal to it._

"But then," asked Potter, "how are those people all still alive?"

Leo's mind was racing ten steps ahead. "Did any of them actually see it directly? If they saw a reflection or something – "

"Yes!" said Potter. "Colin Creevey had a camera – he must have seen the Basilisk through it – the camera was destroyed, but he was only Petrified!"

"The mirror!" said Weasley. "Hermione and Marisa and that Ravenclaw prefect – if she'd found out, she'd tell the first people she met to look around a corner with a mirror, and then – "

Leo really didn't want to hear about that, but he had already worked out the next one: "Finch-Fletchley must have seen the Basilisk through the Gryffindor ghost – what's his name – Nearly-Headless Nick."

"Nick got the full blast of it, but he's already dead, he couldn't die again!"

"And Mrs. Norris…" began Weasley.

"The bathroom was flooded that night," said Potter. "She could have seen it through the reflection."

"Yes! And Hagrid's roosters were killed, and he said something about the spiders…"

"But how's it been getting around with no-one noticing it?" asked Leo.

Potter pointed to a word he hadn't noticed before, in Granger's handwriting: _pipes._

"Oh! It all fits, this has to be it! It's a basilisk!"

"What do we do now?" asked Potter.

"Tell a teacher," said Weasley immediately.

"Not yet," said Leo. "First, we need to see if we have any other clues to tell us about the Heir. What can you tell me about the diary?"

"Oh, that," said Potter.

"Are you sure we can trust you?" asked Weasley.

"Look," said Leo, exasperated, "if I was the Heir, I wouldn't have given you the information about the missing page, would I?"

"The diary," said Potter, "belongs to a student called Tom Riddle…"

And he explained how it had shown him the memory of Riddle's capture of Hagrid, and how they'd later discovered that Hagrid hadn't done it (he was slightly cagey about how that had happened; Leo had the feeling it involved more rule-breaking).

"Have you worked out who stole it?" asked Leo. He still wasn't sure whether there was a definite connection between the diary and the attacks, but it was certainly worth investigating.

"It has to be a Gryffindor – only they know our password."

"That's… not very helpful. There's about a hundred Gryffindors in the school, and that's not even counting the teachers. Who knew you had it?"

"The only time anyone else saw it… I suppose it could have been someone from our dorm… but Valentine's Day."

"There were just a few first-years…" said Leo. "That prefect, is he your brother, Weasley?"

Weasley nodded.

"Wait… don't you have a sister who's first-year Gryffindor?" asked Leo.

"Yeah – Ginny – blimey, you're not suggesting – "

"No," said Leo hastily, "but I thought she might have noticed something if one of her classmates was acting oddly or something. Ask her about it. _Subtly._"

"And shall we tell a teacher about the basilisk?"

Leo shook his head. "Not yet," he said. "We need to keep everything a secret. There's a chance the Heir could figure out we're onto him. We work in complete secrecy, and only when we have a specific name do we go to any teachers."

They might have argued, but Leo's tone and the look on his face were enough to convince them.

"We'd better get to class, then," said Potter, and he and Weasley left for Defence.

Leo lingered a little longer. He moved from Granger's bed over to Marisa's and placed his hand on hers for a brief second, and then he left.


	81. Lunchtime

At lunchtime the next day, Leo was sitting at the Slytherin table, talking to Tracey (the only one of his friends who was speaking to him; Daphne was also furious at his threatening Theo) about the latest Transfiguration lesson. He wasn't entirely sure she was paying attention, or understood what he was talking about, but it was better than nothing.

"What are _they _doing here?" asked Pansy Parkinson suddenly.

Leo twisted around in his chair, sandwich still in hand, to see Potter and Weasley looking decidedly uncomfortable to be seen at the Slytherin table.

"We – uh – wanted to speak to Asriel. In _private._"

Leo stood up immediately, ignoring the inevitable awkward looks and questions sent his way by the rest of the Slytherins, and they walked to a space between the tables where they wouldn't be heard.

"Well?" he asked impatiently.

"I tried to speak to Ginny at breakfast," said Weasley, "and I – I think she was going to tell us something important, but… my brother Percy showed up and she just scarpered. And I haven't seen her since. She wasn't at lunch, I'm a bit worried. Have you seen her?"

Leo shook his head. "I'm a Slytherin," he said, "why would I have seen your Gryffindor sister?"

"We should look for her," insisted Ron.

"We shouldn't do anything reckless," said Leo, and a voice not unlike Marisa's whispered in his ear _You hypocrite! _"If she doesn't show up this evening, tell a teacher."

Weasley didn't look very happy at being bossed around by a Slytherin, but he accepted it and stalked back to the Gryffindor table.

Leo returned to his own seat and took a bite out of his sandwich.

"What was that all about?" asked Draco.

"I managed to get some information about the Chamber out of them, now I have to pretend I'm not just manipulating them to get what I want."

"You're being nice to Gryffindors?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, they aren't Slytherins, exactly, but they're not too bad if you don't expect too much of them. Plus having friends across all houses might come in handy someday. You never know."

Draco was looking at Leo as if he was insane, but Leo didn't mind that.


	82. Despair

Three hours later, Leo sat alone in the Slytherin common room, trying to think and not let the weight of despair cloud his thoughts.

He'd messed up. It was all his fault, and he'd failed. Ginny Weasley had been taken into the Chamber of Secrets, because he had tried to be _subtle_ instead of doing the sensible thing and telling a teacher everything.

And now Ginny was going to _die _because of his actions, and what was (almost) worse, Hogwarts was going to close. And without Hogwarts there would be no education, no learning, just stuck with the Malfoys forever. And worst of all – no Marisa. Because of his own stupid actions, he was never going to see her again.

He had to think. There had to be something, anything, that he could do to stop this from happening.

_Ginny Weasley was taken into the Chamber of Secrets. She had some information, relating to the diary or one of her classmates. The writing on the wall read "Her skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever"._

Something didn't add up, he was sure of it… and then it hit him. When you had a monster that could kill with one glance, why would you need to take the victim into the Chamber itself?

It was a trap. It had to be a trap – the Heir was trying to lure someone into the Chamber… but no-one knew the entrance, and the teachers wouldn't be reckless enough to go down there – oh.

Potter. The Heir was trying to kill Potter. It was so obvious, once he thought about it. The victims – Creevey had been annoying Potter, there had been the incident with Finch-Fletchley at the Duelling Club, Granger was his friend, and now Ginny was his best friend's sister.

Someone had to stop him from going into the Chamber. "Tracey," said Leo, "can you lend me a mirror?"

"Uh – sure," said Tracey. "I won't ask why."

"Good," replied Leo.

Tracey hurried upstairs and returned a moment later with a small hand-mirror.

"Thanks," said Leo. He took it from her, stood up and began walking towards the exit of the common room.

"Where are you going?"

He kept walking.

"Come back! We're not supposed to go!"

He was gone before he could hear any more of her protests, not that they would have made any difference.


	83. The Trap

"Slow down," said Professor McGonagall, "and start from the beginning."

Leo sighed. His attempts to explain exactly what was going on had not been going well; in fact, Professor McGonagall had dismissed him out of hand until Professor Dumbledore suddenly returned. The Headmaster had a lot more interest in hearing what he had to say, but Leo was too panicked by this stage to express himself clearly.

"The Heir of Slytherin chose to take Ginny down into the Chamber as a trap for Potter," said Leo patiently. "We need to stop Potter from walking into this trap."

"Potter does not know where the Chamber of Secrets is!" said Professor McGonagall hotly.

"The Heir thinks he does, the Heir thinks Potter has enough information to work it out!"

"Then surely, since you have the same information as Potter, _you _should also be able to work it out?"

This was a direct challenge, and Leo wasn't going to turn it down… but he had no idea. _Think_, he told himself. There had to be some location… some significant event… "There was a girl who died last time the Chamber was opened," he said. "Where did she die?"

"In the girls' bathroom on the second floor," answered Professor Dumbledore.

Something about that rang a bell. Girls' bathroom… dead body… it was near there that the cat had been attacked… a ghost! Yes! "The girls' bathroom is haunted!" said Leo triumphantly. "Could it be that girl? Could the entrance to the Chamber be _in that bathroom?_"

"It's certainly possible…" said Professor Dumbledore cautiously.

"It's just the sort of conclusion Potter would jump to as well," said Professor McGonagall.

By unspoken agreement, the three of them jumped to their feet and set off at a run towards Gryffindor Tower.

Leo would have been hopelessly lost in seconds, having never needed to go to the Gryffindor common room, but fortunately both teachers knew the way very well indeed and it only took them minutes to reach it from the staff room.

He ignored the extremely hostile stares he was being given from the Gryffindors and looked frantically around for Potter. There was no sign of him.

"Has anyone seen Harry Potter?" asked Professor McGonagall.

There were a few non-committal murmurs.

"When was he last seen?" asked Professor Dumbledore, but Leo had no patience for this sorting out of rumours, he knew where Potter would be and he had to get there before it was too late. He turned and ran pell-mell down the stairs towards the second-floor bathroom.

He tore down the stairs that led somewhere different on Tuesdays without even stopping to think what day of the week it was (thankfully, it was Monday), he ran down the formerly-forbidden third-floor corridor, nearly fell down the central staircase, and finally came to a halt, gasping for breath and nursing a stitch in his side, outside the bathroom.

Leo took a single deep breath and then flung open the door. The room was empty, except for a large black hole under the sink and a mournful-looking ghost.

"Myrtle," he said, praying he'd remembered her name right from what Marisa had told him, "I need to ask you something important."

The ghost nodded, as much as a ghost could be said to nod.

"Have you seen Harry Potter go," he gestured to the hole, "in there?"

"Yes," said the ghost. "He was with his friend Ronald and Professor Lockhart. If you're going down after him, tell him that if he dies, he's welcome to share my toilet."

Leo blinked. Professor Lockhart? If it had been anyone else he would have been relieved that there was a responsible adult down there, but the Defence Professor, of all people…

"Thanks," he said to Myrtle, "I will."

He knew that the _sensible, responsible_ thing to do would be to tell Dumbledore and McGonagall immediately that it was too late. But Leo was done being sensible and responsible. He knew that it was time to take some decisive action.

So, he slipped his legs into the chute leading down to the Chamber and pushed himself down before he could change his mind.


	84. Into the Chamber

The slide was steep and slightly terrifying, and the light from the top receded quickly. It seemed to take an age before Leo hit the ground in a heap. He was in the Chamber of Secrets.

He picked himself up, not stopping to check for injuries (he wasn't the one in danger right now) and cast _Lumos _so he could see where he was going. Then he walked briskly down what appeared to be a kind of large passageway. As he got further along, he began to hear a thudding noise, and then he recognised a voice yelling, "Oh – come on – Merlin, this is hard work – "

It was, unmistakably, Ron Weasley. At least this meant that he was still alive. "Hello?" called Leo cautiously.

"Who's there?"

"It's me – Asriel – Leo. It's okay, I'm here to – help. Are Potter and Lockhart there with you?"

By this time Leo was close enough to be able to dimly see Weasley's red hair, and Lockhart sprawled on the ground, almost unconscious, nearby.

"Lockhart is – Harry went on – "

Leo reached Weasley, who appeared to be trying to shift a large pile of rocks without his wand.

"What happened?" he asked.

"Lockhart tried to wipe our memories – he's a fraud, didn't do any of the things he said he did, and Harry took his wand and threw it out the window – and we forced him down into the Chamber with us and he grabbed my wand and tried again but it's been broken ever since the incident with the Whomping Willow and it exploded and… this happened." He gestured to the wall of rocks blocking them from going further into the Chamber.

"But… Potter still has his wand, right? Couldn't he have just blasted through – "

"We thought the ceiling would fall down."

"Shield Charms," said Leo. "They'll hold it up enough to keep you safe if it does."

"I don't know how to cast a Shield Charm, Lockhart never taught us anything, and we only have one wand – "

Leo sighed. "Fine," he said resignedly. "I'm going to blast through, but in a controlled way so it won't fall down." He studied the rocks carefully, looking for a spot where it could work. He'd never really studied how to break through a rock wall without causing it to collapse and was mostly making it up as he went along, but he had to get through somehow.

Once he thought he'd identified a weak point, he muttered, "_Nox_," to put out the light of his wand, and then touched it to the wall. "You might want to get a safe distance away," he said. "Take Lockhart with you, if you want."

Weasley moved back, not bothering with Lockhart, and Leo took a deep breath.

"_Bombarda!_"

There was a deafening crashing sound. Leo covered his head with his hands, closed his eyes and hoped for the best.

The noise eventually came to a halt, with Leo still feeling more or less alive. He opened his eyes, then realised that it was dark anyway. His wand was still in his hand, so he muttered, "_Lumos_."

To his pleasant surprise, the rockpile had completely collapsed, but the ceiling hadn't. He stood up immediately and began picking his way through the rocks until he saw a huge green snakeskin lying on the ground. "Basilisks shed their skin, do they?" he asked conversationally.

"Where are you going?"

"Into the Chamber, obviously. You coming?"

Weasley got to his feet, not wanting to be beaten in bravery by a Slytherin, and the pair walked forward together.


	85. The Closed Door

The silence was eerie: there was no sign of a Basilisk, or Ginny Weasley, or Potter, of Slytherin's heir. Leo and Weasley walked forward in silence until they reached a large door with a snake engraved on it. The door was shut.

"Parseltongue, I'm guessing," said Leo. "Which would mean that we can't get through it." Even so, he looked around for a handle or some obvious way of opening it. There was none. He tried another _Bombarda, _but the spell hit the door without any effect at all.

They stood in silence, staring at the door. Leo tried another couple of spells, but without any more success.

"We're stuck, then," said Weasley.

"I think so." It was at that moment that the full horror of the situation hit Leo for the first time. They were trapped in the Chamber of Secrets, with no way to help Potter (if he was still even alive) and potentially not even a way out of the Chamber.

Weasley swore.

Leo wasn't the type for swearing, but the word Weasley had used summed up his feelings of the situation pretty accurately. He stared at the door and said "_Open_." It was extremely unlikely that he was a secret Parselmouth (particularly when he definitely wasn't Slytherin's descendant) but worth a try.

"Why do you keep looking at me like that?" asked Weasley.

"Looking at you like what?" Leo asked in reply, puzzled.

"Like it's beneath you to talk to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Every time I speak to you, I feel like you're insulting me or calling me stupid… like I'm making some mistake by just trying to talk to you…"

"I don't think you're stupid," said Leo, struggling to put his thoughts into the right words, "but there are a lot of different kinds of intelligence, and you don't have all of them. And that annoys me."

"What kinds of intelligence don't I have?" asked Weasley angrily.

"You judge people for the wrong reasons," said Leo slowly. "You distrust me because I'm a Slytherin, and because of – my parents. I mean, there are sensible reasons to distrust me, but it's not those ones which are important. It just feels unfair. And then you… you have no subtlety, no logic, you're just completely driven by emotion and what you feel like at that particular moment."

"Subtlety!" yelled Weasley. "Look where your subtlety got us! My sister could be dead because of _your_ decision not to go to the teachers!"

That hurt Leo, but he refused to show it and did his best to control his rising anger. "I made a mistake," he said carefully. "That happens. I'm sorry, and I was trying to fix it. That's why I'm down here. It's not my fault."

"You're only doing this because of that girl, that Marisa, aren't you?"

"No," said Leo. "I'm doing this for everyone who's been hurt by Slytherin's heir. I want to show that not every Slytherin believes in blood-purism or the innate superiority of wizards."

Weasley studied him suspiciously.

"In the interests of trying to actually have decent relations between Slytherins and Gryffindors," said Leo, having thought of an idea, "what would you say to a game of chess when all this is over? Assuming we get out alive?"

"Sure," said Weasley. "If you like."


	86. Aftermath

An hour or so later, Leo was sitting in Professor McGonagall's office accompanied by everyone who had escaped from the chamber (thanks, apparently, to Dumbledore's phoenix, the Sorting Hat and the corrosive powers of Basilisk venom.

The explanation of what had actually been going on all these months made an awful lot of sense, and Leo was wondering why he hadn't realised it before, and why he hadn't made more of an effort to get hold of that diary before Marisa had been attacked.

"Now," said Professor Dumbledore finally to Harry and Ron, when almost everything had been discussed and sorted out. "I seem to remember saying I would have to expel the two of you if you broke any rules."

Harry and Ron gaped at him.

"Which goes to show that even the best of us can be forced to eat our words. I am going to award all three of you Special Awards for Services to the School, and… let me see, two hundred points each to your Houses."

Leo found himself smiling. He hadn't expected this to happen, but it was nice to know that Professor Dumbledore wasn't actually completely biased in favour of Gryffindors. And it would certainly guarantee Slytherin second place ahead of Ravenclaw in the House Cup.

"There's one thing I don't understand," said Potter. "How did Ginny end up with the diary?"

And then Leo realised. It should have been obvious, but there was no time to say it because the door burst violently open and in stalked Lucius Malfoy, Dobby the house-elf cowering beneath his arm.

"Good evening, Lucius," said Dumbledore pleasantly.

Lucius's eyes shot briefly to Leo, as if wondering why he was there, but then returned to Dumbledore. "So! You've come back. The governors suspended you, but you still saw fit to return to Hogwarts."

"Well, you see, the other eleven governors contacted me today. It was something like being caught in a hailstorm of owls, to tell the truth. They'd heard that Arthur Weasley's daughter had been killed and wanted me back at once. They seemed to think I was the best man for the job, after all. Very strange tales they told me, too. Several of them seemed to think that you had threatened to curse their families if they didn't agree to suspend me in the first place."

Leo was horrified at these accusations. Surely, surely it couldn't be true… but it did make sense, and it was just the sort of thing Lucius might have tried.

"So," sneered Lucius, refusing to react to the accusations, "have you stopped the attacks yet? Have you caught the culprit?"

"We have."

"_Well? _Who is it?"

"The same person as last time, Lucius. But this time Lord Voldemort was acting through someone else. By means of this diary." Dumbledore held up the little black book with a hole in to show him.

Leo scrutinised Lucius's reactions intently.

"I see."

"A clever plan. Because if these three students here – "

Leo's heart gave a little thump: he hadn't thought once about the consequences of thwarting his adoptive father's plot, but he quickly realised that he would soon be facing serious problems.

"– hadn't discovered this book, why – Ginny Weasley might have taken all of the blame. No one would ever have been able to prove that she hadn't acted of her own free will… and imagine what might have happened then. The Weasleys are one of our most prominent pure-blood families. Imagine the effect on Arthur Weasley and his Muggle Protection Act, if his own daughter was discovered attacking and killing Muggle-borns. Very fortunate the diary was discovered, and Riddle's memories wiped from it. Who knows what the consequences might have been otherwise…?"

All the time Dumbledore had been speaking, Dobby was miming something for Harry's benefit.

"Very fortunate," said Lucius stiffly.

Harry had finally worked it out. "Don't you want to know how Ginny got hold of that diary, Mr Malfoy?"

"How should I know how the stupid little girl got hold of it?"

"Because you gave it to her. In Flourish and Blotts. You picked up her old Transfiguration book and slipped the diary into it, didn't you?"

"Prove it," hissed Lucius.

"Oh, no-one will be able to do that," said Dumbledore, smiling. "Not now Riddle has vanished from the book. On the other hand, I would advise you, Lucius, not to go giving out any more of Lord Voldemort's old school things. If any more of them find their way into innocent hands, I think Arthur Weasley, for one, will make sure they are traced back to you."

"Dobby," snapped Lucius, "we're leaving. Asriel, come with me."

Leo stood apprehensively. There would be no time to work out how he wanted to spin this to best please Lucius: he'd have to make it up as he went along.


	87. Lucius's Side

Five minutes later, Potter had somehow managed to trick Lucius into freeing Dobby. Leo couldn't say he wasn't pleased about this, given the Malfoys' mistreatment of the elf, but the downside was that Lucius was even more furious than he'd already been.

They'd found a deserted classroom and sat down, Lucius at the teacher's desk and Leo at his own usual one.

"_Explain_," said Lucius.

"I was trying to stop the attacks."

"Why?"

"Because I don't want innocent people to die!"

Lucius sighed. "You think Muggle-borns are 'innocent people'? That they're human just like any other?"

"Well, _yes_," said Leo, angry now himself. "If you actually bothered to learn about Muggles, you'd see they're human just like wizards. They've accomplished all kinds of things, just because they don't have magic doesn't mean they're somehow _inferior._"

"Silence," snapped Lucius. "Listen to me."

Leo waited.

"I understand these things. I have heard these arguments before and they are true. Muggle-borns are not inferior. _However_, a large proportion of the wizarding population believes these things, and it is important that we are seen to not be too friendly towards Muggles and Muggle-borns. We can use anti-Muggle sentiment to our advantage very easily. Do you understand?"

"Yes, but… why would you unleash that monster on the entire school? What possible political gain can be worth _killing _potentially _hundreds _of people?"

Before answering, Lucius raised his wand and cast several spells Leo didn't recognise. "Privacy charms," he explained. "What I am about to say must be kept extremely confidential. Do you understand?"

Leo nodded.

"The Dark Lord, before he vanished, ordered me to give his diary to a student, so that it would be used to open the Chamber of Secrets. I have to obey his orders."

"But the Dark Lord is… gone. Dead. Isn't he? Why do you still have to do what he says?"

"The Dark Lord is gone, yes – but he will come back, and when he does, I must be able to prove that I have been loyal in his absence."

Leo could understand these reasons, but it was still no justification for what had been unleashed. He could cope with it, though, so he said, "I understand. I didn't realise."

"I expect much more thought before you act next time," said Lucius.

"Yes. I know. I'm sorry."

Lucius turned and stalked out of the room without another word.


	88. Awakening

It was three days later that Professor Dumbledore finally announced the news Leo had been waiting for: The Mandrake Draught was ready. The Basilisk's victims would be waking up within a few hours.

Leo lingered a little at breakfast that day, waiting for the rest of the students to leave. As they were filing out, he went up to the High Table and said, "Professor? Can I ask you something?"

"Certainly, you may," said Dumbledore.

"Can I be excused from classes for today? It's just – the victims are going to be waking up, and I – I want to be there."

He felt horribly vulnerable at this admission, but his mind was fixed.

"I think that can be allowed, given the… special circumstances. I will make the appropriate arrangements." 

"Th-thank you, sir," said Leo, and turned to go.

He was in the hospital wing, sitting on a chair beside her bed, five minutes later, writing a Transfiguration essay while he waited impatiently for Professor Snape to arrive with the draught.

"I have the Headmaster's permission," he told Madam Pomfrey. "And I'm not leaving, I don't care what you say."

Madam Pomfrey tutted and said, "When the patients wake up, they are likely to be slightly confused, and they'll need someone to explain what's happened since the incidents."

"That's exactly why I'm here," snapped Leo. "I'm the best person to explain what's been going on to Marisa. No offence, but you and Professor Snape don't know her at all compared to me."

Madam Pomfrey bustled away to check on the other patients, and Leo continued writing until finally Professor Snape arrived carrying a large container filled with a clear liquid.

"Asriel," he said, sounding mildly surprised.

"Professor," responded Leo, putting down his quill and spreading out the essay to dry. He wasn't quite done, but that wasn't important.

"You really care about that girl, don't you?" said Snape.

"I – yes, sir. I do." The admission felt like revealing a weakness, something which should never have been spoken, but he refused to lie to a teacher without a better reason than preventing embarrassment. "Don't tell anyone, sir."

Snape nodded. "I just wanted to give you some advice," he said.

"Yes, sir?"

"I… one of my friends when I was at Hogwarts myself used to know a girl. She was Muggle-born, like your Marisa, and not unlike her – though without Miss King's vengeful streak, or her talent for flying. But they were both exceptional young ladies. But this girl, she wasn't a Slytherin, she was Sorted into Gryffindor, and… my friend, he was in Slytherin… and they drifted apart, because they were listening to such different things and developing different views… and then one day… he called her Mudblood. And she never forgave him."

Leo could tell that this wasn't just a friend Snape was speaking about. The hurt in his words could only have come from personal experience. "Don't worry," he said. "I would never call Marisa – that word."

"Even if your housemates pressure you to abandon her – which they will."

"I don't give up because of what of other people tell me."

"Then perhaps I should warn you that Slytherin House is plotting to get rid of her. I have discovered that as soon as she returns from the Hospital Wing, they plan to send her back again – and they want you to help."

"Thank you for warning me, Professor," said Leo. His mind was in turmoil: he was faced with an impossible choice.

"Anyway," said Snape, "we should wake her up."

Leo couldn't help it: he grinned.

"I will be with you once I have divided these into the correct quantities."

"Thank you, sir." Leo wondered what to do. He couldn't be part of an attempt to seriously injure Marisa: that was as clear to him as the fact that the sky was blue and grass was green. But equally, if he was seen to defend her, he would become an outcast and would suffer as badly as she would – if not worse.

Then he had a brilliant idea. It was going to work. There was a simple way out.

A moment later, Professor Snape handed him a cup containing some of the liquid. "You can wake her yourself if you like," he said. "Just open her mouth and pour it in, and it shouldn't take longer than a couple of minutes."

Leo put the cup on the table beside the bed and moved to sit next to Marisa's head. Touching her felt almost like some kind of sacrilege, but moving incredibly gently and slowly, he pulled her jaw down and curled back her lips so he could pour the draught in.

Then he reached for the cup and placed it to her lips. Smiling broadly, he tipped it back and watched the liquid run down her throat.

By the time he'd returned the empty cup to the table, Marisa had begun to breathe, normally and slowly. He watched her as if in a trance, unable to take his eyes off the rise and fall of her chest.

Then she opened her eyes, which instantly sparkled with life and mischief. "Hello, Leo," she said, pushing herself up into a sitting position. "Did you miss me?"


	89. Catching Up

"Not particularly," said Leo, but he knew Marisa would know that he was lying, because he was. He had missed Marisa unbearably. "I was fine without you."

"Yeah, right," scoffed Marisa, then the look in her eyes became much more intense. "Tell me _everything_ that's happened since I was attacked. And if you miss one little detail, I'll hex you to pieces."

"We should probably go somewhere… private," replied Leo. "Can you walk?"

"Walk? I feel like I could run to the moon and back!" Marisa flung back the covers and practically leapt out of bed.

"How would you breathe?" asked Leo. "And how would you escape the Earth's gravity?"

"Learn to cast a Bubble-head Charm. And either sneak on board a rocket or invent a super-powerful Levitation Charm." Marisa jumped to her feet. "Let's go!"

True to her word, Marisa ran almost the entire way to the Room of Requirement. Leo had to sprint to keep up with her, and she managed to lose him with the help of a staircase which changed while he was still on it.

By the time Leo, panting, caught up with her, she was standing at the open door of the Room, waiting for him.

"Hello, slowcoach," she said, slipping through the door and slamming it behind her; Leo was only just able to stop it from closing fully, and followed her into the Room, which today had equipped itself with a giant beanbag, which Marisa was sprawled out on.

"Move up," said Leo, shoving her gently to one end so he could sit down too.

"Go on," said Marisa, pulling her wand from her pocket and twirling it casually. "Talk."

"I know nothing," protested Leo, deciding to play along with her interrogation, "and I wouldn't tell you if I did."

"Don't lie to me," said Marisa. "I have ways of making you talk."

"You know," said Leo, "torture is a very bad way of extracting information. People will just tell you what they want you to hear, and there's no way of telling if it's true or not."

Marisa leaned closer and whispered, "Who said anything about torture?"

Leo blinked. "I assumed that was what you were referring to."

"Anyway," said Marisa, "are you going to tell me or not?"

"Fine," said Leo, flinging up his hands in mock surrender. "I was at the Quidditch match, and Professor McGonagall came running onto the pitch with a megaphone…"

He told her everything, just like she'd asked, and did his best to answer her many questions. The only details he skipped were those about how much he'd missed her and how boring life had been without her. "And one last thing… Professor Snape told me that the rest of the House are – well, plotting to attack you. I have a plan, though, it's okay."

"What's your plan?"

"Not telling!"

"_Rictumsempra!_"

Leo had been completely unprepared, but just managed to roll to one side to avoid the curse and pulled out his own wand. "How dare you?" he spat. "_Tarantallegra!"_

_"__Protego!"_

Marisa's shield easily absorbed the Dancing Feet Jinx.

"_Fracto Strata_!" cast Leo. The zapping spell was normally used to destroy weak objects, but Leo had guessed that it might also work as a shield-breaker, and he was right: Marisa's shield collapsed under the pressure. Seizing the advantage, he followed up with "_Petrificus Totalus!"_

Marisa was startled at this new addition to his repertoire, but not so startled that she couldn't dive out of the way of the Full Body-Bind and fire off another Tickling Curse.

Leo dodged it by a millimetre. "Truce?"

"Fine," snapped Marisa. "If you insist. By the way, has anyone caught me at Exploding Snap yet?"

"No," replied Leo, "but not for lack of trying. You're a mile ahead."

"Can you teach me that shield-breaker?"

"Why would I give my enemy an unfair advantage?"

"I'm not your enemy!" she protested. "We're…" Then she stopped, not quite knowing how to describe their relationship. "Frenemies?"

"_Best_ frenemies," corrected Leo. "I hate you more than anyone I know, and I – " he stopped.

"You what?" asked Marisa, a malicious grin on her face.

"I – " he knew what the end of that sentence was, but nothing in the entire world could have induced him to say it. And he couldn't think of any way to distract her from it either.

She waited for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes. "Well, I certainly hate you more than anyone I know," she said bitterly. "So… yeah, best frenemies sounds good. But only if you admit you like me."

Leo hesitated. He felt like he was on the edge of a precipice, and had the strangest urge to jump. "When you say 'like'," he said slowly, "do you mean… because Daphne's been saying…"

Marisa tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. "She's saying you…?" They both knew exactly what they were implying, but neither of them could quite bring themselves to admit it.

Leo nodded. "It's kind of annoying, because I had to keep explaining I don't – "

"Liar," said Marisa. "To be honest, I'm not surprised the great Lord Asriel doesn't want anyone knowing he has a heart underneath his icy surface. Don't worry, though, your secret's safe with me – as long as you admit it."

"You – you – "

"Say it," she insisted.

He didn't say it. Instead, he leaned over and kissed her.


	90. Necessary Lies

About fifteen minutes later, they walked back to the Slytherin common room together, holding hands all the way. Neither spoke: they were both stunned into blissful silence. Marisa had never felt anything like it: all she needed in the world was the feeling of his hand in hers.

"Wipe that goofy grin off your face," said Marisa finally when they had just reached the corridor. "People will get suspicious."

Leo took a deep breath to compose himself and then said to the portrait "Silver leaves". It swung open and they stepped inside.

"What's going on here?" asked Marisa, staring around, wide-eyed: practically every student was there, all with their wands out and aimed directly at her chest.

Draco sat in the centre of the packed room in one of the two best armchairs, the other empty beside him, an unbearably smug grin on his face. "We're ridding Slytherin House of its Mudblood scum. Namely, you."

She fought hard not to look at Leo, to ask what his plan was and if it had any realistic chance of success, and succeeded. "Are you?" she asked.

"Leo," snapped Draco. "Over here."

Leo walked wordlessly over to Draco and sat down in the other armchair.

"Wand out," said Draco.

Leo pulled his wand from his pocket and pointed it at Marisa.

"Is _everyone_ against me?" asked Marisa.

No-one moved for a second, and then Draco said "Yes. The whole of Slytherin is against Mudblood scum."

"Theo?" she asked.

"You're a Mudblood. We need to get rid of you." His response was almost mechanical, like he said it without thinking, just repeating the slogans he'd been fed.

"Tracey?"

Tracey wordlessly shook her head.

"Daphne?"

"I – I can't."

She'd purposely left Leo until last. She knew he wouldn't refuse to help her. "Lord Asriel," she said finally. "Surely you, at least, have the sense to realise that this shouldn't be happening."

Leo looked up and met her eyes. He was the first person to have done so in the entire room. "Marisa," he said, "surely you must understand that it would be impossible for the Lord of one of the most ancient families of the country, with a proud pure-blood tradition, going back centuries, to support a Mudblood over his entire House? And that I could never be seen to do so?"

Marisa felt as if a weight had settled on her stomach. "Of course, Lord Asriel," she said, bowing her head. "It was foolish of me to have asked." She reached into her pocket for her wand. If she was going to be defeated she'd at least deal some damage of her own first.

Then Leo stood up and walked towards her. "I will help you, Marisa. Anyone who so much as touches a hair on your head will have me to answer to."

A thousand contradictory thoughts flashed through Marisa's head: what was he doing? He'd just contradicted himself – what was his plan? How was he going to get out of this?

"What the hell d'you think you're playing at, Asriel?" snapped Draco.

"Isn't it obvious?" asked Leo. "It's basic logic, you're meant to be Slytherins! Work it out! I won't help a Mudblood. I am helping Marisa. Therefore…"

And then she realised. It was a brilliant plan, and she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it herself at least a year ago. "You said you wouldn't tell anyone!" said Marisa, turning to Leo in fake anger.

"Don't be ridiculous, it's gone much too far. You always said you were going to reveal it at some point, anyway, and you might want yourself to be jinxed to pieces, but I don't."

Draco still looked confused. "Therefore, you're being confusing to mess with me and try and trick me out of making her suffer."

"Wrong. Although not unreasonable. Marisa's the one who's been messing with you, ever since you first met her. Telling lies without actually lying."

"Oh, very well," said Marisa, rolling her eyes. "I am not a Mudblood."


	91. Slytherin Chaos

414 words. For Hogwarts January Writing Month.

The room was instantly filled with a furious uproar, and for one horrifying moment Leo was convinced his plan wasn't going to work, that they'd be so angry they would just attack her anyway. He stood still and waited for the initial shock to pass and silence to resume. Now the Slytherins weren't the united force they'd been just a second before: they were confused, whispering to each other and breaking into smaller groups.

Finally, Draco said loudly, "Why would you lie to us?"

"Technically I never explicitly stated that I was a Mudblood and therefore didn't lie," said Marisa. "I merely allowed you to believe that I was a Mudblood."

"But still… why?"

"Because I wanted to find out who was Slytherin enough to realise that I couldn't possibly be a Mudblood," said Marisa. "Call it a test to see who would be the most useful allies."

"I worked it out as soon as we met, of course," continued Leo, making it up as he went along. "Do you seriously think I would have let myself get this close to her if she was a Mudblood?"

"I – " said Draco, "so – if you're not a Mudblood – "

"Half-blood," said Marisa, "but my parents divorced when I was young. My dad was a wizard but I never saw him after I was about two so I didn't know about magic until I got my Hogwarts letter. And I realised I'd have to learn quickly, so I wanted to find out who I could rely on to help me find my feet."

"You're insane," said Theo.

"Isn't everyone, to some degree?" asked Marisa. "Or do you claim to be a perfectly logical and emotionless machine, like Leo?" She winked at him.

Leo shot her a death glare, not being able to protest without admitting that he did have emotions.

"It is a perfectly sane plan, and what's more it did work. I know who I can rely on – to stab me in the back when I need him most."

"I'll stab you in the back now if you're not careful," said Leo grumpily, but Marisa had achieved her goal. The tension in the room had vanished and everyone began to go about their business.

"Anyone for Exploding Snap?" asked Leo, heading over to his friends, but Daphne shook her head. "Could I just have a word with Marisa first? In private?"

"Sure," said Marisa, and the two girls hurried up to the (empty) second-years' dormitory.


	92. Girl Talk

"Go on," said Daphne in a low, excited voice. "Spill the beans."

Marisa guessed instantly what this was about, but she decided to feign ignorance. "What beans?" she asked.

Daphne sighed. "Look, Leo being clueless I could understand with these things, but I know for a fact you're faking it."

"You spoke to Leo about this?"

"Don't change the subject."

"All right," said Marisa slowly. "You tell me everything you've seen and heard since I've been Petrified that made you think Leo likes me, and I'll tell you what happened. Deal?"

"Deal," said Daphne immediately. "So… he was horrified when you were attacked, and he went a couple of times to sit by your bed and watch you. And then he got much more serious about trying to stop Slytherin's monster – do you know what happened in the end?"

Marisa nodded. "He told me."

"And then he was trying to convince us to do something and Theo refused and accused him of being obsessed with you… I never knew how scary Leo could be until I saw that. And then Draco… he called you a Mudblood, and Leo just literally blew up at him. That was when I first worked it out. And then I spoke to him about it, and he denied everything, but so obviously I could tell he liked you."

Marisa smiled, already filing away the information for future blackmail potential. "Fine," she said. "I'll tell you. We were just chatting the way we do, and then somehow the topic turned to how we should describe our relationship. I think we originally settled on 'best frenemies' but then Leo almost admitted he liked me… and I was teasing him and trying to make him say it… and then…" she couldn't help blushing. "He kissed me."

Daphne smiled. "So you're officially together now, are you?"

"I… guess," said Marisa slowly. "We didn't really talk much after that happened."

Daphne smiled knowingly. "You might want to watch out for Tracey, though. She'll be very angry when she hears about this."

Marisa sighed. To be perfectly honest she hadn't imagined Tracey as posing much of a threat or being the sort to try to get revenge on another girl, but even so she resolved to watch her back.


	93. Chess, Part One

On the next Sunday, Leo and Marisa were relaxing in the grounds together. The first Snow Leopards meeting since the attacks had been stopped was scheduled for later that morning, but first they had a game to play with a certain Gryffindor.

"I'm just hoping he won't try the Queen's Gambit," said Leo. "I've always hated having to defend against that one, it's just so awkward, and it leaves the bishop trapped."

"Stop taking it so seriously," said Marisa, flicking a piece of grass at him. "This isn't about winning, it's about improving Slytherin-Gryffindor relations."

"Only losers say that. Anyway, are you turning into some kind of politician?"

"How dare you?" gasped Marisa in mock offence, reaching for her wand, but before she could cast a Tickling Charm, she heard Weasley say "Uh… hey."

"Hi," said Marisa, instantly flicking from "alone with Leo, go crazy" to "people are watching, keep it under control". She spun round to look at him, and was not surprised to see Potter and Granger also there.

Leo pulled two chess boards out of his bag, tossed Marisa the bag with her pieces, and began setting his own up along the board.

"So, if those two are playing each other," said Marisa, opening her bag and placing her king in the middle of the back file, "do you two want to play me?" She gestured to Granger and Potter.

"Two against one?" asked Potter.

"Sure, if you like."

"You're on," he said. "Prepare to be crushed."

Marisa smiled and decided to make her victory as sweet as possible.

"You can be white, then," said Granger. "That makes it fairer."

"Please, like I need a fair game to beat you two," she said, but made it clear that she was joking. Once both sides were set up, Marisa said "Pawn to e4."

"Pawn to e5," said Potter immediately.

"Hold on," protested Granger, "can we at least discuss strategy before we move?"

"Yeah, but not in the opening, I know these moves by heart!"

"We should have used the Sicilian Defence, that's the best response to that opening!"

"Knight to f3," said Marisa, smirking in a way she knew was completely infuriating.

"We defend the pawn, right?" said Potter.

"Right. Knight to c6," said Granger.

"Who are you?" barked the knight. "We take orders from him, not you!"

"You take orders from both of us for this game. Knight to c6."

"Fine," snapped the knight, moving forward.

"Bishop to b5," replied Marisa immediately.

Potter and Granger conversed in whispers for a while before Potter finally said "Pawn to a6."

Marisa, though, wasn't prepared to let her bishop be forced back. "Bishop to c6," she said, watching with a smile as her bishop wrestled the knight off its square.

"Pawn to c6," said Potter immediately.

"Which one of us?" asked the d-pawn.

"That's a tricky one…" said Granger. "Because if you take with the d-pawn you mess up the structure of moving it forward in a few moves, but if you take with the b-pawn you mess up advancing on the queenside later on."

Marisa stared at the other board, where Leo had just begun playing Weasley. Leo seemed to be trying to use the Queen's Indian Defence (or something of that sort; it was a bit beyond Marisa's level). As she watched, Weasley's bishop attacked one of Leo's pawns.

"B-pawn," said Potter finally, and Marisa watched with a frown as the pawn moved onto the square and charged at the bishop.

Then she began plotting her next attack.


	94. Denying Responsibility

Twenty minutes later, Marisa was two pawns and a bishop up, but Potter and Granger had managed to get one of their pawns dangerously close to the edge of the board and Marisa's rook was forced to defend against its promotion.

Marisa's defences were more or less intact, but it was getting towards the stages of the game where a wall of pawns in front of her king was doing more harm than good. "Pawn to f7," she said, and glanced over to see how Leo and Weasley were getting on. Their game had by the looks of the board been very brutal and involved lots of exchanges, and Leo now had bishop and knight against Weasley's rook, and the two sides were vying over pawns locked together in the middle.

She turned back to her own board to see Potter launch a bold attack with his rook, offering to exchange it for hers – a deal that she couldn't afford to take, despite her advantage, because if she did, they'd promote the pawn and put her in a very dangerous position. Instead she retreated the rook along the file while still attacking the square in front of the pawn.

This, however, left her knight exposed and undefended: Potter quickly took it with his rook. She frowned and stared at the board for a minute before announcing her next move, advancing her own pawn further and then pausing as she heard Leo announce "Check" to a groan from Weasley.

"Rook to h3. Check."

Marisa sighed and instructed her king to escape to g8.

"So mad girl's playing chess with Gryffindors now, is she?"

Marisa glanced up to see Theo glaring at her, wand already out.

"Yup," she said. "Although I'm not mad. Is your wand out because you want to jinx me or because you think I want to jinx you?" Scaring and disconcerting people, she'd decided, was very enjoyable, if only for the joy of seeing the looks on their faces.

"I think you want to jinx me," said Theo. "Why are you associating with Gryffindors?"

"Why not? And I don't want to jinx you, but that might change if you continue to ask stupid questions. Oh yeah, and pawn to c6."

"Because they're – well – _Gryffindors_," said Theo.

"They're fun to mess with. A bit like you, actually. I think we're nearly done here if you don't mind waiting."

"Waiting for what?" asked Potter.

"A meeting," answered Marisa. "Ask Leo, it's kind of confidential."

"Leo?"

"I'm thinking," said Leo, who was studying his board carefully. "Don't distract me."

"Am I allowed to explain, then?"

"Fine."

Marisa tucked her hair behind her ears, paused to observe Potter's move, and then said "Rook to d1. It's an extra-curricular group, we mainly do practical spell work."

"Sounds interesting," said Granger. "Can we join?"

"No," snapped Theo.

"It's restricted to Ravenclaws and Slytherins," explained Marisa, "but maybe Leo can make an exception or change the rules."

Theo looked, to say the least, less than pleased by this. "What the – "

"Language," said Marisa. "Leo's in charge, he gives the orders. His decision."

"Oh," said Leo sarcastically, attacking Weasley's pawn with his bishop, "so now there's a tricky decision to be made I'm the sole leader and you have no authority whatsoever? Really, I'd almost think you're trying to deny responsibility for the consequences."

"Yup," said Marisa cheerfully. "Guilty as charged."

"Rook to e3," said Granger. Marisa quickly moved her bishop to d4 to defend the pawn.

"Let me think about it," said Leo. "And about my next move."

There was a long pause, during which Marisa was able to push her pawn forward another square, but at the cost of her rook being forced to defend it now it was on a different-coloured square to the bishop.

Daphne and Tracey strolled up to the group, Tracey looking rather glum and glaring half-heartedly at Marisa. They were followed by a group of Ravenclaw girls chatting amongst themselves.

"I think a democratic method would work best," said Leo slowly. "If a majority of our current members vote in favour the motion will be passed. So we need to wait until the others show up."

Marisa nodded, smiling as she announced "Pawn to e7. Now who's denying responsibility?"


	95. The Meeting, Part One

A few minutes later, everyone had arrived and Marisa was one move away from victory. "Rook to g8," she said with a grin. "Checkmate."

"Impressive," said Granger.

"Well done," Potter agreed, looking only a little grudging.

Leo and Weasley, on the other hand, were still going. Neither side looked likely to force checkmate within the next few moves, or, possibly, at all.

Leo sighed, knowing what he had to do but reluctant to concede not having won. "Would you like a draw?" he asked, managing to sound not completely grudging.

"Sure," said Weasley, shaking hands. "Good game. You were better than I expected."

"Likewise," replied Leo, quickly packing the pieces away and standing up. "So, everyone, you probably already know our guests, but if you don't, they are Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger. They want to join our group. Obviously, this goes against our rule of Ravenclaws and Slytherins only, but I wondered if we could make an exception. So we're going to have a democratic vote. All those in favour of allowing them to join, raise your hands."

A flurry of hands went up: nearly all of the Ravenclaws and a couple of first-year Slytherins, plus Marisa and a tentative Daphne.

"All those against?"

Quite a few hands went up, including Theo's and Tracey's, but they were most definitely in a minority.

"Then I declare the motion passed," said Leo.

Theo swore very loudly. "We can't let _them _into our group," he spat. "I mean, Mu – ggle-borns are bad enough, but Harry bloody Potter, are you serious?"

Leo sighed. "We had a vote, that's democracy, and I am bound to carry out the results of that vote. If you don't like it, you can leave."

"You know what? Sure. I'm about done with you crazy people, you're not worthy of the name of Slytherin." And with that, he marched back up to the castle. He was followed by his cousin Matthew.

"Good riddance," said Morag, smiling.

"Sorry," said Leo, feeling a little awkward. "Not all Slytherins are like that."

"No, some are worse," added Marisa. "The ones left here are mostly all right, though. Crazy, sure, but not die-hard blood purists. Anyway, can we get on with the lesson now?"

Leo nodded. "It's been a while since our last meeting," he said, "so I thought we'd just revise what we worked on before Easter instead of trying anything new. But first I want to get an idea of the skills of our new members… fancy a duel, Potter – err… Harry?"

Harry nodded, somewhat nervously.

"And then… Marisa and Ron, and… Daphne, d'you want to go with Hermione?"

"Sure."

The three pairs faced off against each other, and all six of them bowed low before the duels began.

Harry's opening move was a simple Disarming Charm, which Leo dodged easily before returning the attack with a Full Body-Bind, also dodged. Then Harry began to fire faster, making it trickier to dodge.

"_Protego_," cast Leo quickly, and the Disarming Charm bounced off Leo's strong shield. Harry was only just able to get over his surprise in time to dart out of the way, and then he began firing hexes and jinxes at the shield as quickly as he could.

Leo knew this wouldn't work, though: he'd tested it against Marisa and Harry's magic might have been stronger, but it was less well-controlled and he was using a lot of energy – and distracting himself.

In one rapid motion, Leo jumped to one side so he could fire out from behind the shield and cast a rapid Full Body-Bind. He was right about the distraction and the spell's pale white light was harder to see if you weren't looking for it, so it hit Harry right in the chest.

He allowed himself a brief moment's triumph before releasing Harry and checking to see how the other two duels were going.

"No – " gasped Ron, in between desperate giggles. "Please – stop!"

Marisa had evidently hit him with a Tickling Charm, and judging by the look on her face was very much enjoying it.

"You should probably stop, Marisa," said Leo.

"_Fine_," said Marisa, lifting the Charm with more than a hint of reluctance.

Ron scrambled to his feet, looking exhausted and shocked. "Blimey," he said. "That was…"

"Brilliant?" suggested Marisa half-jokingly.

"I was thinking more of _evil_," he corrected.

"Yeah, she's evil," said Leo, turning to watch Hermione and Daphne, the only pair who were still going: Daphne's Shield Charm had failed to hold up and now the two girls were much more evenly matched.

"I give up," said Daphne, gulping for air. "Draw?"

"Draw. I had no idea how – how much you'd been doing, how far ahead you were, it feels kind of unfair we haven't been learning any of this stuff in class."

Leo rolled his eyes: typical Hermione Granger. "It's fine," he said. "I don't think we're going to need any of these spells – for _classes_ at least – for at least another year or two. But you'll catch up quickly. So, where d'you want to start?"

"Shield Charm," said Harry instantly.

"Okay," said Leo. "Marisa, d'you want to help me teach them? Terry, Daphne, if you could take the others through some exercises, have another look at _Fumos_ and keep working on Disarming for the first-years."

Marisa nodded, looking perhaps a little too keen on the idea.


	96. The Meeting, Part Two

Five minutes later, to the surprise of precisely no-one, Hermione had a working Shield Charm. While Leo took Harry and Ron through the wand movements until they could get it right, he set Marisa to testing the strength of Hermione's shield.

"_Expelliarmus!_" cast Marisa. _"Petrificus Totalus! Locomotor Wibbly!"_

The shield absorbed the first spell, wobbled under the second and was shattered by the third.

Hermione looked somewhat crestfallen, but she quickly cast another Shield Charm, this one holding up a lot better and surviving five spells before Marisa managed to shatter it. Harry got the spell much quicker than Leo had been expecting, and before long he and Hermione were firing spells at each other's shields, with Marisa adding the occasional jinx into the mix.

"I think you can go and join the others, if you like, Marisa," said Leo.

Marisa nodded and ran the short distance across the grass to join Terry's group, while Leo took Ron through the wand movements again until finally the shimmering magical shield began to appear.

"I did it!" said Ron with a smile. "Take that, Hermione, I did it!"

If Hermione had been Marisa, she would have fired a jinx and shattered the shield, but she wasn't. "Well done, Ron," she said with a smile.

They kept going until Hermione's shield could reflect some of Leo's hexes and stand up to five or six in a row, and Harry's wasn't far behind. Ron, too, was fast catching up.

"I want to see you duel against someone you're evenly matched against. Harry, Hermione, against each other?" asked Leo.

They nodded and bowed to each other.

Harry opened with a Disarmer (strong but predictable, and the aim a little off) while Hermione immediately flung up a shield to block the inevitable volley of hexes (too defensive, but a solid strategy if your opponent hadn't learnt any shield-breakers).

Harry fired a few jinxes into the shield, putting as much power into them as he could and dodging the reflected Jelly-Legs. On his fifth spell, _Tarantallegra_, it shattered. He had the sense to follow up instantly before Hermione could adjust, firing off a quick Full Body-Bind which Hermione barely managed to dodge.

From that moment the initiative in the duel was firmly Harry's: his rapid-fire jinxes and hexes kept Hermione too busy dodging (clumsily; it was clear she hadn't worked much on her physical fitness) so she didn't have time for another shield and it was only a matter of time before a Disarming Charm finally connected.

Harry grinned in triumph.

"Good work, both of you," said Leo. "Once you've learnt a few more spells for these situations you'll be giving me and Marisa a run for our money."

"Did someone say my name?" said a voice from behind him.

Leo whirled around, but too slowly to block or dodge Marisa's Full-Body Bind. His arms snapped to his sides and he fell like a board.

If looks could kill, Marisa would have been vaporised in that moment.


	97. Let The Battle Begin!

"And that," said Marisa with a smug grin, "is why you always watch your back. Nice work with that duel, by the way, but don't think you're ever getting within a million miles of me."

"Let him go," said Harry.

"But if I do that, he'll attack me," replied Marisa with an innocent, disarming smile. "Now, let's see how well your shields hold up to a _real _attack, not Leo's pathetic attempts."

All three Gryffindors looked very nervous, and with good reason. Harry, however, nodded and cast a Shield Charm.

Marisa attacked mercilessly, forcing as much power as she could into the spells and firing them off as quickly as she could. She felt her mind slip into the instinctive, almost unconscious frame it needed for duelling, knowing without thinking how to twist her wand and which spells to use and where to dodge.

The shield went down after only three spells and Marisa's next Full Body-Bind made contact. She grinned. "Who's next?"

Ron and Hermione glanced at each other before Hermione whispered something in Ron's ear and he said "I'll go."

They might be learning fast, but they were still very much Gryffindors and had no subtlety whatsoever. They were definitely plotting something. Pretending not to realise, she fired a Disarming Charm into Ron's shield, followed by a Full Body-Bind. As she fired the third spell, a Jelly-Legs Jinx, she heard a whisper of "_Expelliarmus!_" from behind her and lunged instinctively to one side, her spell missing the shield and fizzling out.

Hermione had reversed the Full Body-Bind on Leo, and true to her prediction he was attacking her. It would soon be four against one. She needed a plan.

She aimed two swift Full Body-Binds at Ron, the first shattering the shield and the second hitting him in the chest, and without pausing sprinted over to the main group. "Daphne! Help me!" she said desperately. "They're all teaming up on me!"

"I'm on it," said Daphne, aiming a Disarming Charm at Leo, who was chasing after her.

"Me too," added Morag, throwing up a shield to protect the three of them.

Tracey, on the other hand, immediately attacked Marisa with a Full Body-Bind.

Marisa dodged quickly and Daphne took Tracey down with the same spell.

"We need a proper strategy," said Marisa. "Who's with me?"

Anthony, Ollie and Roger raised their hands, as did about half of the first-years.

"Okay. Pair up, one shield, one attack," she said. A simple strategy, and perhaps not the most effective, but the best she could come up with on the fly. "And Leo is mine," she added.

The situation quickly dissolved into chaos: everyone recognised the cue for a battle, and Leo's supporters immediately attacked Marisa's.

Leo himself was bombarded by spells as he hurried towards the main group – the downside of Shield Charms was that they were useless when you were moving. He dodged most of them but was hit by a stray Jelly-Legs Jinx from Anthony which sent him to the ground. By the time he'd managed to cast the counter-curse and get to his feet, Marisa had arrived.

One near miss with a Full Body-Bind later, he abandoned his attempt to move forward and threw up a shield. Then he took a calculated risk and cast _"Fumos!_", conjuring a smoke screen so Marisa couldn't see to aim her spells.

He cast through his own smoke screen and around the shield, taking guesses to Marisa's location and hoping she wouldn't be able to see the spells coming.

"Really, Leo, that is not a very effective strategy," said Marisa. Her voice seemed to be coming from straight ahead, but he couldn't cast through his own shield. "I can just do something like this."

And he felt his legs lock together. She'd had someone sneak behind to outflank him. He tried to spin around and cast another shield, but his wand was torn from his grip before he could react.

"Good work, Daphne," said Marisa with a grin. "_Petrificus Totalus!"_

Leo dodged, but just barely. He knew his luck wouldn't hold for that long without a wand or the full use of his legs, and sure enough Marisa's next spell connected.


	98. A Declaration of (another) War

An hour later, the chaos was finally over, Leo's side having been narrowly victorious. Leo and Marisa had retreated to the library, where neither would be able to jinx the other without facing the wrath of Madam Pince, to catch up on some revision.

Leo was one of very few students in his year, and most likely only two non-Ravenclaws (Hermione, naturally, being the other) who was upset about the cancellation of exams. He was determined to study just as hard as he would have done if there had been.

Marisa, on the other hand, was using her time to catch up on the smaller details of what had been going on while she'd been Petrified: classes, gossip and day-to-day life.

And they _might_ have shared the occasional kisses when no-one was looking. Not that either of them would have admitted it for the world.

Both, however, were less cheerful than they had been: there was less than a month left of the term now, and soon they'd have to go home and not see each other for the entire summer.

It would be hard – much harder than last year – to get along without each other for that long, and they were trying not to think about it until closer to the time.

"Maybe I'll invite you to stay at my house during the holidays," suggested Leo. "Now you're not a muggle-born – officially – you should be an acceptable friend."

Marisa grinned. "Sounds good. We'll need to think up a few ways to drive Draco insane while I'm there."

"Definitely," agreed Leo. "Should probably look into a few prank spells as well."

Their lips split into matching evil grins, but Marisa was startled away from her Herbology essay when she heard a voice – or two voices? – behind her.

"Why, hello, Miss King."

"A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

She stood up and spun around slowly to see two older red-headed twins, also sporting evil grins.

"Likewise… Fred and George? Who's who?"

"Now that, Miss King – "

" – is a secret you will never find out."

"A little bird told me – "

"That you've been messing with our baby brother."

Marisa tried as hard as she could to keep track of which one was speaking, but it was harder than she'd expected.

"As much as we admire the sentiment – "

" – we are the only ones allowed to mess with our ickle Ronnikins."

"So," they said together, "we're going to make you pay."

Marisa sighed. "You know, generally when you want to take revenge on someone it's wise not to tell them until your plan is complete."

"But where would be the fun in that?" asked Twin One.

"Rule one of being evil: don't gloat until you're at least two hundred and ten percent sure you can't possibly lose," said Leo. "Gloating is fun, but not if it means your plan is going to fail."

"Thank you for the warning. I shall watch out for any evidence of pranks."

The twins, looking disappointed that their attempts at intimidation had failed, turned to leave. As an afterthought, Marisa called after them "And maybe you'd better watch out, too!"

Then, once she was sure they were out of earshot, she said "We're doomed."

"Excuse me, _we_? I don't intend to get mixed up in any of this."

"I would have thought you'd want to defend your girlfriend."

"You really don't know me at all, then, do you?"

Marisa rolled her eyes. "Right. Fetch me that book of prank spells. I'm going to show them exactly why I shouldn't be messed with."


	99. On the Train

Only a few short weeks later, the Hogwarts Express was ready to take the students home for the summer. Leo and Marisa weren't sitting with their usual group: instead Draco, Vincent and Gregory had invited them both to join them.

Marisa's social status within Slytherin had risen dramatically from the moment she'd "revealed" she wasn't Muggle-born. She was still a half-blood, Muggle-raised, but those were defects that could be overcome and by this time everyone knew that she was not one to be messed with.

(Except the Weasley twins. She had yet to manage a successful prank on them, but had been attacked by Peeves on their orders with humiliating results. Still, she was sure she'd have a better plan by September.)

She was going out of her way to be nice to Draco: they seemed to have come to a truce and she wasn't going to break it without good reason. After all, Draco was the _de facto _leader of Slytherin house for a good reason, and if she could get him on side her own power would be greatly increased.

Plus, her being nice to Draco annoyed Leo. Which was a nice bonus.

Right now, they were munching their Chocolate Frogs and talking about Quidditch. Draco supported the Tutshill Tornadoes, while Leo followed the Appleby Arrows although he wasn't a massive fan.

Marisa had been following the professional Quidditch league, but she hadn't particularly supported any team until now, when she felt a strong urge to become a Tornadoes fan. She discovered a sudden admiration for the perfect Wronski Feint their Seeker, Emily Harper, had pulled off in their last match against the Chudley Cannons.

"The Chudley Cannons? What kind of a stupid joke team are they? They've never won the league since last century. Only losers like Weasley support them!"

Leo supressed a sigh at this, wondering how Marisa would react.

"Yeah, exactly," she said, nodding eagerly. "I mean, did you see that thing their Keeper did where he practically fell off his broom?"

"It made me laugh, at any rate. I wonder, have you ever considered playing Chaser? The Slytherin team needs a new one next year."

"Never really tried before, but I reckon my flying's good enough. Maybe I should try out." She bit the head off her third Frog.

"Yeah, you definitely should," said Leo, beginning to feel a bit left out of this conversation. "Between you and Draco, Slytherin will be unbeatable!"

"Careful," said Marisa. "Don't jinx it. Whatever your opinions on Potter, you've got to admit he's a pretty good flyer, and Ravenclaw have a strong team too."

"Since when were you the pessimist in this group?"

"Since it gave me an excuse to disagree with you," replied Marisa with a grin.

"Of course," muttered Leo, rolling his eyes. "Hey – is that Cliodna?"


	100. Journey Home

About half an hour later, Leo stood up. "I might go and see how Theo and Daphne are," he said. "Coming, Marisa?"

"Sure," she replied. They walked outside together and shut the door of the compartment behind them.

The moment they were outside, Leo asked "What's that all about, then?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Marisa shot Leo a glare. "I was trying to become friends with Draco to improve my reputation. I've already got a decent shot at the Quidditch team."

"And what happens if I don't want you to become friends?" he asked, a slight edge to his voice.

"We'll become friends anyway just to annoy you," replied Marisa, seemingly oblivious to the tension. "Seriously, Leo, just because we're together now doesn't mean you get to say who I can be friends with."

"But you don't actually like Draco?" he persisted.

"When you say like, do you mean as in like him as a person, or as in…" she grinned mischievously.

"The former."

"Good. Because if it had been the latter you would have been deader than dead."

"You can't be deader than dead, Marisa. That's not how it works."

"Since when has that stopped me?" she asked with a grin. "I still love you, but that's not going to stop me making allies elsewhere. Okay?"

"I can't really refuse, can I?" Leo asked, rolling his eyes.

"No," insisted Marisa. "You can't. Now shall we go and see Theo and Daphne?"

Leo nodded. "May as well."

They set off down the train, carefully keeping their balance. When they passed the trolley witch on the way, Marisa couldn't resist buying two Sugar Quills.

"Hey, guys," said Leo, opening the compartment door.

"Hello," said Daphne; Theo eyed Marisa warily. Leo hadn't found out exactly what Marisa had done to him (best not to make himself an accomplice to her crimes) but whatever it was, it had certainly scared him.

"Any exciting gossip we've missed?" asked Marisa.

"Not really," Daphne replied. "Well, I heard a rumour Padma has a crush on some Hufflepuff but other than that, nothing much."

Marisa stared suspiciously at Daphne for a moment before shrugging it off and sitting down. "So," she said. "Are you going to try out for Quidditch next year?"

"No way," Daphne replied. "I'm keeping my feet on solid ground where they belong."

"Good," Marisa replied. "Less competition for me."

Leo sighed. Ever since Marisa's increase in popularity she'd been spending a lot of time networking with the other Slytherins, and it was getting to the point where he was starting to feel like she was ignoring him. But he was discovering that it was very hard to be mad with her: every time he tried to raise his concerns, she'd silence him with either a jinx or a kiss and what he'd been trying to say would go right out of his head.

"I'm not trying out, either," he said. "Although that was probably obvious."

"Really?" asked Marisa. "I'd never have guessed!"

He silenced the little voice of frustration. This was the last time he'd see Marisa in months, and he was going to enjoy it.


	101. Summer Holiday, Marisa Part One

A few days later, Marisa found herself in the park, lying for all she was worth to her former clique of followers. She'd barely spoken to any of them since starting Hogwarts, and had almost forgotten them, but they still wanted to spend time with her.

They'd been told that Hogwarts was an "elite and highly selective boarding school up north". This had evoked quite some jealousy, and she was sure if she'd been anyone other than Marisa she'd be in serious trouble by now. But her reputation kept her safe.

"What are the boys like at your school?" asked Lucy. "Are they cute?"

Marisa didn't have to fake her blush. "Some of them," she replied. "Others not so much. Like Vincent and Gregory… they're just all muscle, no brain. Most of the others are all right, though."

"Have you got a boyfriend?" asked Sarah.

Marisa blushed and nodded.

"What's his name? What's he like? Have you kissed him? Is he cute?"

"Leo, nerdy but ruthless, yes and yes," Marisa rattled off. "He also refuses to be afraid of me."

"I'm surprised you haven't killed him yet," joked Lucy.

"Where would I be without an enemy somewhat close to being my equal?" Marisa asked, grinning. "I keep him alive to avert my own boredom."

"Of course you do," Sarah muttered. "That is so typical of you."

"I have a reputation to uphold, don't I?" she asked wryly. "Anyway. Either of you two got boyfriends yet?"

Both shook their heads.

"Yeah, I guess Leo and I were a bit early. But I figured if we liked each other then we might as well say so. A few of my friends have crushes, but none of them have done anything yet. I'm wondering whether I should come up with some matchmaking scheme just for fun next year. Might be fun to try and get them all paired off."

"I could definitely see you as a matchmaker," Lucy agreed. "In fact, do you think you could help me out?"

"If it saves me from dying of boredom, sure. But you'll owe me. What's the situation?"

Lucy grinned. "So the boy is Jack West. He's one of the most popular kids in school and he already has a girlfriend who's way richer and more popular than me, and I'm pretty sure he doesn't know I exist."

"Sounds like a challenge," said Marisa. "I reckon I can come up with something, though. Tell me more about this Jack and his girlfriend. I need to know everything."

She grinned. This would, indeed, be fun.


	102. Summer Holiday, Leo Part One

Leo, on the other hand, wasn't having anywhere near as much fun. In fact, he was bored to death with only Draco to talk to. He also didn't much appreciate the topic of conversation.

"You know, I never really noticed before, but Marisa's actually quite pretty."

"When she wants to be. I'm pretty sure she was trying to manipulate you into liking her."

"She's pretty good at manipulation, if that's the case."

"You bet she is," he muttered. "But don't trust her. Ever. No matter how sweetly she smiles. I've lost count of the number of times she's hexed me in the back."

"Why do you still hang out with her, then?"

"Because I am more than capable of giving as good as I get. And because driving her insane is more fun than driving you insane. If harder."

"Are you mad?"

"Probably." Leo sat down and began to write.

"Homework already?"

"Has to be done some time, doesn't it?" asked Leo, shrugging.

"Not on the second day of the holidays," Draco replied.

Leo rolled his eyes. "Why, do you have anything better to do?"

"Yeah, obviously. Practicing Quidditch, owling friends, talking to you…"

"You think talking to me is better than doing homework?" asked Leo. "Because I don't particularly."


	103. Summer Holiday, Marisa Part Two

Marisa's plan was in place. It meant some large sacrifices on her own part, for which she would make Lucy pay at some date in the future.

Jack's girlfriend Holly was having a birthday party, to which she'd invited more or less everyone in her year, including Marisa (they'd been rivals before, and Holly had learnt the hard way that she needed to be nice to Marisa). Lucy and Sarah were also attending.

Marisa, however, had faked an illness on the day of the party, and her mother had called Holly's to apologise and say Marisa couldn't come. Now she was sitting up in bed, phone gripped tightly in her hands, waiting for the signal from Sarah.

A message was already typed on its screen: _How's it going, Jacky?_

There was an evil smile on her face as she pictured the scene at the party: Jack's friend Sam would ask to see some messages on Jack's phone (secretly blackmailed by Marisa into doing so on pain of revealing exactly what had happened between him and Holly two years ago).

Holly being the gossip she was, she would of course want to see the messages, and would look at Jack's phone. At that point Sarah would text Marisa, who would press send on the message, and… the fallout from that would be interesting. She couldn't wait.

Her phone vibrated in her hand. She took a deep breath and pressed the send button, then began typing as quickly as she could.

_Sorry I couldn't make it. Being ill sucks _

She waited for a little while before sending another message: _Sorry, is this a bad time?_

_Are you busy?_

Then she waited some more until she got a reply: _WTF are you doing? _

_Trying to talk to you, obvs._

Her phone went silent then. She smiled. So far, so good.


	104. Summer Holiday, Leo Part Two

"So… I was wondering… can I invite a friend over for a week or two?" asked Leo nervously.

Lucius raised one elegant eyebrow. "You have someone you want to invite?"

"Yes. I'm not completely anti-social, you know. I just have high standards."

"Who is it?"

"Marisa. And she's not a Muggle-born, before you say anything. She was pretending to be one to mess with everyone. She does that kind of thing."

"Really?" asked Narcissa. "Tell me more about her."

"She's smart – her grades are almost as good as mine. She's… kind of evil, but in a good way, if that makes sense. She manipulates and flatters everyone to get them to like her, and if anyone does something she doesn't like she'll hit them back, with pranks or something like that. She's also a bit jinx-happy. She's kind of the only person I've ever met who thinks in the same way I do."

"In other words, she's a madwoman," concluded Draco. "But once you get used to her, she's actually all right."

"As long as you watch your back," Leo added.

"And she's really pretty," said Draco.

"I don't notice those things."

Narcissa looked at Leo as if she knew exactly what was going on between him and Marisa.

"I'd like to meet her for myself," said Lucius. "Yes, you may invite her. Will next Monday do?"

Leo nodded. "Yes, thank you."

He managed to avoid seeming stupidly happy at Lucius's approval as he left to send an owl to Marisa.


	105. Summer Holiday, Marisa Part Three

"Marisa, there's someone here to see you," called her mother from downstairs.

"Who?"

"Jack West."

"Okay," said Marisa, smiling. "I'm coming down, give me a minute."

"Are you sure you're okay to see him?"

"I'm _fine_, Mum. I'm feeling much better." That was the downside of faking an illness: fussy parents trying to make you stay in bed for days afterwards. Still, it was nothing she couldn't deal with. She took her time coming downstairs into the hallway, where Jack was standing outside the door.

"Hi, Jack," she said, looking at the expression on his face. He was utterly furious with her. Not surprising, really. She'd have to get this right to stop him being mad with her and possibly draw his attention to Lucy. "This is about last night, right?"

He nodded. "Can we take a walk? Are you feeling up to it?"

"Yup. If you don't mind, Mum?"

Her mother shrugged. "Fine. Just don't blame me if you get even worse."

"Thanks," said Marisa, adding to Jack "Ignore her. She worries too much."

They got about halfway down the narrow cul-de-sac before Jack finally ground out "What the hell did you think you were doing last night?"

"…yeah, sorry about that," said Marisa. "I just couldn't think of a way to do it honestly."

"Do what? Do you like me or not, and if you do, aren't there better ways of showing it than just texting me out of the blue like that?"

"No, I don't like you. Well, I do, but not in that way. I have a boyfriend at my school."

"Then why…"

"Because I didn't want you going out with Holly. She's just not right for you, I think you can do better."

"Oh, this is about your feud with her, is it? Why'd you have to drag me into it?" asked Jack, glaring at her.

"It's more than just about me and her, she's really not the right girlfriend for you… okay, don't tell anyone this, but I saw her snogging Tim Jones. She's cheating on you. I don't want anyone to know 'cause I'm keeping it for blackmail material."

"And you want to trash my reputation instead of hers?"

"No, I'll take back everything I said and tell people it's just to mess with you and Holly. Then everyone wins. I don't care about my reputation here now I'm away most of the time."

He stared at her for a long moment. "Still as crazy as ever, then?"

"Crazier, if anything. My new boyfriend encourages me."

Jack raised his eyebrows. "He's crazy, too?"

"You bet he is. In the best possible way. About the only one who can put up with me when I'm in crazy mode."

"…this isn't your crazy mode?"

Marisa laughed. "If you think this is my being crazy, you have no idea what I get up to when no-one's watching."

Jack shot her an incredulous look. She fought the urge to laugh.

"Hey, Marisa."

Marisa looked up to see Lucy approaching and smiled internally. This hadn't actually been part of the plan, but it would certainly work. "Hi, Lucy. Jack and I were just talking about last night. You were there for the drama, then? I want to hear exactly how Holly reacted. Don't spare the tiniest detail."

"I saw. I would like to know what you were playing at, though."

This was the weak point in her plan: Lucy, unlike Marisa, was not a good actress and the entire scheme could fall apart if she couldn't conceal her feelings.

"Messing with Holly, mostly. You know we've hated each other's guts for years; she really should know better than to provoke me again, but she did and I thought I needed to take some drastic action."

"…so you and Jack don't have a thing going on?" asked Lucy.

"You know I have a boyfriend, Lucy," said Marisa, rolling her eyes.

"I wouldn't put it past you to cheat on him, especially when there's no way he could find out."

"If I were in a secret relationship with Jack, I wouldn't have been stupid enough to text him in the middle of a party."

"Fair point," admitted Lucy.

"Go on. Tell me everything. What happened?"

"Holly was looking at these messages from the football team, and then she just froze, I guess. The expression on her face was quite something. And then the phone kept vibrating, and she hurled it against the wall and started screaming at Jack."

"That was not fun," Jack said. "I still haven't forgiven you for that, Marisa."

"It's not my fault she jumps to conclusions," said Marisa with her most innocent smile. "What did she say?"

"You don't want to know," said Lucy. "There was a lot of swearing involved and some of the things she said about you were not pretty."

"I can imagine," Marisa replied, grinning. "I do want to know, though."

Her phone vibrated; she checked it quickly. It was from Holly, and featured some very unpleasant language and threats. "That's my mum," she said. "I have to go. See you both around?" She winked at Lucy.

"Yeah," said Lucy.

"I'd rather not, if it's all the same to you," said Jack. "You're turning my life into a madhouse."

Marisa smiled and couldn't resist saying "Love you too, Jacky," as a parting shot. With a wicked grin on her face, she turned to head for home.


	106. Summer Holiday, Marisa Part Four

"Marisa! You're back! There's some owl tapping at the window, it won't stop until it's given you its letter."

Marisa instantly forgot the snarky reply she'd been planning to make to Holly's texts and dashed to the window to rip the letter from the owl's talons and tear it open.

_Good news, Marisa! Lucius and Narcissa gave me permission to invite you over – I think they're mostly just curious to see what you're actually like after what I've told them. Meet next Monday at… actually, I don't know your address. Can you send it to me?_

_See you soon!_

_Leo._

She snatched up the nearest pen and was about to feverishly scribble a reply when she realised that Leo would see how hastily she'd written it, and slowed down. She told him her address and agreed enthusiastically, giving him a brief outline of what she'd been up to with Jack, then carefully gave the letter back to the owl.

"One of my friends has invited me to stay for a couple of weeks," she told her mum. "That okay?"

"Uh… who is she?"

"He, actually. His name's Leo. He's nice, we're really good friends. Sorry, I just remembered I need to get my homework finished before I go."

She was not at all in the mood for the extremely awkward conversation about relationships that would no doubt follow, so she beat a hasty retreat upstairs and then typed out a message to Holly.

_If that's an attempt to scare me, it failed. Be very thankful that I'm staying with a school friend for a few weeks, otherwise you'd suffer a lot more than a lost boyfriend._

After surviving an encounter with a thousand-year-old Basilisk, no teenager could scare Marisa. With the possible exception of Leo.


	107. Collecting a Friend

Leo was not used to posing as a Muggle. Lucius and Narcissa had both flatly refused to go anywhere near a Muggle area, so he was on his own for this. He'd managed to get hold of some Muggle clothes, but they felt completely unnatural.

The street looked surprisingly dull and unexciting: he didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it was much more glamorous than this ordinary street. He walked up to the door of number forty-two and pressed the bell.

The door was opened by a Muggle woman, who looked as if she had been beautiful when she was younger but was now just exhausted with life. "You must be… Leo? Where are your parents?"

"Biological or adoptive?"

She stared at him for a moment. "Whoever looks after you."

"I look after myself. My adoptive parents are… busy. Is Marisa ready?"

"I don't know. Come in, I'll go and check."

Leo walked into the living room and sat down. It was very small and cosy, filled with fluffed-up cushions on all of the furniture.

"Marisa, Leo's here," called her mother.

"Okay," came the reply from upstairs. "Tell him I'll be down in a minute, I'm still packing."

Marisa's mother joined Leo in the living room. "Marisa hasn't finished packing. She'll be down in a minute."

"She's lying," said Leo immediately. "If I know her, she's been packed since about six o'clock this morning. She just wants to make me wait."

"Marisa wouldn't lie. I've brought her up better than that."

Leo fought the urge to laugh at Marisa's effortless deceit or correct her mother. "I suppose."

They sat there somewhat awkwardly, neither having anything to say to the other, for a few minutes until Marisa finally strolled casually downstairs, dragging a wheeled suitcase behind her.

"Hey, Leo," she said. "Long time, no see. How's your summer been?"

"Meh, all right," he replied. "Although spending so much time with Draco has been rather dull."

Their conversation was noticeably stilted and awkward, hiding so much from Marisa's mother.

"I can imagine," Marisa said. "You must have been bored to death without me."

"Hardly," scoffed Leo. "Don't think I'm so dependent on you that I can't live for two weeks without the sight of you. I actually find it quite refreshing."

"He loves me, really," said Marisa. "He just has a funny way of showing it. Shall we go?"

"Let's," agreed Leo.

"Bye, Mum. See you soon."

And with that, they left.


	108. Matchmaker?

As they walked along the high street to the train station, they spotted Jack and Lucy, holding hands. Marisa hid a smile.

"Hi, Marisa," said Lucy. "Who's your friend?"

"This is Leo," she replied. "My boyfriend."

"You told your friends about me?" asked Leo, mildly surprised.

"I had to put a stop to all the gossip about me and Jacky," replied Marisa with a grin.

"Pleased to meet you, Leo," said Jack. "I'm Jack West. I don't envy you Marisa, she is utterly insane. She's wrecked my life and put it back together in the last few weeks."

"I know," replied Leo. "That's why I like her."

"Are you and Lucy together now?" asked Marisa.

"Yup. We got talking after you left us the other day and found out we had a lot in common. I asked her out a couple of days later."

"That's great!" said Marisa with enthusiasm that may or may not have been faked. "I think you'll be really good for each other."

Leo studied Jack and Lucy closely and remembered what Marisa's message had told him; evidently her plan had worked, unsurprisingly.

"I don't know you, but if Marisa thinks you're good together I trust her judgement on relationships. She does have a knack for matchmaking, after all."

Marisa shot him a quick, subtle glare. "If you mean I actually have a basic understanding of human nature, then yes, I do."

"Oh, please, you only bother trying to understand people so you can manipulate them to get the results you want." Leo smiled innocently. He was enjoying this baiting of Marisa.

Marisa, on the other hand, was desperately willing Lucy not to take his bait, not to give the game away at this stage. "Believe it or not, I am actually capable of doing something without an ulterior motive."

"Give me a specific example of something you've done without an ulterior motive."

"Sorry," said Marisa to Jack and Lucy. "This is just how we act with each other. And there we are, that apology and explanation had no ulterior motive."

"No, you had the ulterior motive of being able to say you'd done something without an ulterior motive."

"Yeah, I can see why you two like each other now," Jack remarked. "No-one else can cope with your insanity.

"Something like that," agreed Leo. "Now if you don't mind, we do have places to be."

"Better things to do, better people to drive mad," Marisa added. "See you around some time. Bye, Jacky."

They carried on walking, leaving Jack and Lucy bemused in their wake.


	109. Bus Ride

"Don't do that," said Marisa reproachfully as they waited at the bus stop, leaning back against the hard plastic seat.

"Don't do what?" asked Leo, even though he knew perfectly well what Marisa meant.

"Try and mess up my schemes just to annoy me."

"I wasn't – " But he was lying, and they both knew it.

"So, how's Draco been?" asked Marisa. "Is he looking forward to my visit?"

Leo sighed. Why was she talking about Draco when they both knew what she really wanted to do? He knew the answer, of course (to mess with him. Obviously.) but that didn't make it any less annoying. Still, if she wanted to mess with him, he was going to mess with her right back. "I don't know. I think he has pretty mixed feelings, mainly boiling down to thinking you're mad."

"So, like most people, basically. What about his – your parents? Should I call them your parents?"

"I don't mind, but in their presence, yes, it is probably better to call them your parents. They're both curious, they want to check out this stranger who supposedly has so much influence over their adopted son, so you'll want to make a good first impression. Try and act relatively normal."

Marisa started to respond, but the sound was lost beneath the noise of the bus pulling up at the stop. They waited for the doors to swish slowly open, and then Marisa handed over her cash with a sweet smile and requested two single tickets to a village within walking distance of Malfoy Manor.

"There you go, love," said the bus driver, smiling. "Have a great trip."

Leo shot the man a glare.

"Bit grumpy, isn't he, your boyfriend?" asked the driver.

"Yeah, he gets jealous every time I look at someone else," replied Marisa. "It's really annoying."

"Ditch him," the driver recommended.

Marisa tilted her head to one side as if considering his suggestion. "Maybe I will," she said, and without waiting for Leo, strolled to the back of the bus and sprawled herself out on the back row of seats.

"I hate you," said Leo, sitting down next to her.

"Don't mess with my schemes," replied Marisa. "Anyway, what were we saying? Oh yes, 'supposedly'. You're denying my influence over you?"

"You have no influence over me," said Leo.

"Oh, really? I don't believe you."

The bus began to move; Leo, who still hadn't adjusted to Muggle transport, fought the urge to flinch in surprise. "You would say that, wouldn't you? You can't bear to consider the possibility that there's anyone in the world you can't wrap around your little finger."

Marisa simply smiled. "Oh, I know quite well there isn't."

"I swear, if it wasn't for the stupid Statute of Secrecy…"

"Is that supposed to be a threat?" asked Marisa.

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't."

The bus slowed to a jerky halt at the next stop and two teenage boys boarded. "Move over," said one of them, advancing threateningly towards Leo and Marisa. "These are our seats."

"I don't see any names written on them," Leo replied. "As far as I can tell anyone's allowed to sit here."

"Not if you don't want to get beaten up, you aren't," the other boy said.

"Do you want to get beaten up, then?" asked Marisa, intentionally leaving it ambiguous who the question referred to.

"You gonna beat us up?"

"Probably not, I was just pointing out that since anyone who sits on these seats gets beaten up, that would imply that you want to get beaten up. Or is there some problem with my logic?"

The boys stared at her in silence for a moment before one said "You're mad, aren't you?"

"Yup," replied Marisa. "I guess you could call me a psychopath, if you're the sort to stick labels on people."

"It's okay if you know how to deal with her. If you don't…. I recommend staying as far away as possible."

"But that would be so boring," protested Marisa. "Why don't you join us? We can get to know you a bit." She smiled sweetly.

The boys looked at each other for a long moment before one said "Nah, you know what, we're all right, thanks."

And they sat right at the front of the bus, leaving Leo and Marisa to smile evilly at each other.


	110. Meeting the Malfoys

An hour or two, several odd glances and a cheeky farewell to the bus driver later, Leo and Marisa had finally arrived at Malfoy Manor. It was only a five-minute walk up to the imposing metal gates that barred the entrance to the grounds.

"Hello," said Leo. "It's me. I've brought Marisa."

The gate swung open. Leo offered Marisa his arm, which she took with a glare.

"Shall we go, my lady?" he asked mockingly.

"We shall, Lord Asriel," she replied, and they walked down the pale-stoned drive. As they approached the house, they heard a loud, angry squawk.

Marisa fought the urge to jump, and relaxed as she saw that it was only a large white peacock: unusual, certainly, but nothing to be frightened about. The Manor itself was a large, imposing building: a show home, Marisa decided. One where you could entertain guests and host parties, but not one where you could live comfortably.

But who cared about living comfortably?

Leo strode confidently up to the door and knocked. A few seconds later it was opened by Draco, who muttered "Can't believe I'm having to do these things myself. I mean, seriously, how long does it take to find a new house-elf."

"Hello to you too, Draco," replied Leo. "Stop grumbling, would you."

"Hey, Draco," said Marisa. "Long time, no see. Any news on the Tornadoes' fortunes? I haven't been able to keep up, and Leo hasn't been paying attention."

"We won our last two matches," Draco answered. "Crushed the Appleby Arrows, but only beat the Wasps by ten points. Still, we're a decent way clear at the top now."

"Glad to hear it," said Marisa.

"You'd better come in, my parents are looking forward to meeting you."

The trio trooped inside and down the long hall to the dining room, where the table had been laid for lunch with sandwiches neatly chopped into triangles.

Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy sat together at the table, and both studied Marisa intently. "So," said Lucius. "You must be the infamous Marisa. Both of my sons have told me a lot about you."

"Indeed," replied Marisa. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"What, precisely, is the nature of your relationship with Leo?" asked Narcissa.

Marisa blushed. "We're dating, casually. It's not really official or anything, but we're together. Have been since May last year."

"Wait, what?" asked Draco. "You never told me that!"

"You never asked," said Leo.

"And we heard about your pretending to be a Mudblood," said Lucius. "Could you explain that?"

"Technically I didn't pretend to be anything I wasn't, no-one asked me my blood status. And you'll have heard my explanation from either Leo or Draco, I expect, but it's so I could work out what everyone was like. Who the smart people were. Only then I actually started to like Leo."

"She told me after only a few days," explained Leo. "Though really, it was obvious from the moment she was sorted into Slytherin."

"No _real _Mudblood would ever be a Slytherin," concluded Marisa, as if it was an obvious fact. To the Malfoys, she supposed, it was.

"I expect you must be hungry," said Narcissa. "Let's eat."

Marisa smiled. She was utterly starving.


	111. Family Dinner

Leo was impressed with Marisa's acting skills. She was doing an extraordinary job of pretending to be a normal, sane Slytherin teenager. She chatted to Draco about Quidditch (Leo exaggerated his boredom for fun) and told the Malfoys about her grades, giving Leo a chance to complain about the cancellation of exams.

"Why would you want to do exams?" asked Marisa. "Exams are stressful."

"They're the only way to measure your progress," Leo replied.

Marisa laughed. "More like the only way for you to show off your supposed brilliance."

"What do you mean, supposed?" asked Leo.

"I mean your actions this year weren't exactly smart."

Leo winced. "Don't go there," he said. "Just don't."

"Fine," muttered Marisa, drawing out the word unnecessarily. "If you insist. Where would you like to go instead?"

"Plans for next year," suggested Leo. "Are you looking forward to Hogsmeade?"

"Yeah," Marisa replied. "I heard some of the third-years talking about it last year. Apparently there's this little teashop called Madam Puddifoot's where couples go for dates. I think I'll try and get you to take me there."

"No," said Leo immediately. "I will not."

"In fact," Marisa continued, "my mission for this upcoming year is to get you to take me to Madam Puddifoot's."

Leo shot her a death glare. "Not in a million years will you succeed in that."

"Just you watch me," replied Marisa with a smile.

"You won't be able to do it," said Draco. "Leo would never willingly go into a place like that."

"So I drag him there against his will, obviously," replied Marisa. "Sneak up into the Slytherin dormitories at night, force-feed him a few potions and sneak into Hogsmeade with him."

"Remind me to look into charms that wake you up if anyone sneaks into your room at night," remarked Leo. "And remind Marisa not to reveal her plans in front of her would-be victims. Really, _how _many times have I told you that?"

"Please, like I listen to a word you say," Marisa laughed. "Sorry. Don't mind Leo, he's mad."

"Coming from you, that's… a little hypocritical." He shot her a look that read _tone it down a little bit_, and she replied with a tiny nod.

"I know," she replied, "but it's true."


	112. Return to Hogwarts

After that, the summer seemed to fly by. Marisa spent hours flying around the grounds of Malfoy Manor, letting Draco chase her and dive-bombing Leo, who soon learnt to duck or be hit with something relatively harmless but embarrassing (rotten fruit, a few times). She allowed him to drag her to the library for homework sessions (the way Draco said it, the quotation marks were audible, and to tell the truth they _might _have been doing _other things…_)

She did go home before the end of the holidays, but between checking up on Jack and Lucy's relationship, snarking at Holly's ridiculously incompetent attempts to get revenge, owling Leo about the Snow Leopards' curriculum for the next year and obsessively playing video games, the time passed far more quickly than she'd expected.

In fact, almost before she knew it, it was time to return to Hogwarts. She said goodbye to Lucy and Sarah, making promises to write to them that she was fairly sure she wouldn't keep, and packed everything neatly into her trunk.

She hugged her mother goodbye at King's Cross Station like the dutiful daughter she definitely wasn't, and held in the urge to sprint at the barrier, instead pushing her trunk normally until she was on the other side, back in the magical world at last.

She was ridiculously early - it was still only twenty to eleven - but already students were gathering on the platform. A gaggle of nervous-looking first years stood near the platform, glancing around in surprise and awe. Other students milled around, waving to old friends, greeting each other, looking for compartments.

Marisa pulled her wand from her pocket. "_Lumos._"

Its tip lit up with a soft golden glow. She grinned. "Watch out, Hogwarts. I'm back."

Leo and Draco hadn't arrived yet, but Daphne had, so she went over to chat to her friend.

"So. I heard you stayed with Leo over the summer. How was it?"

"Fishing for gossip again?" asked Marisa, smiling. "Really?"

"I'm curious," protested Daphne.

"It was fun. I did a lot of flying with Draco. The Malfoys were really nice – mostly because they'd heard all kinds of rumours about the stuff I've been up to. Some of which were true."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "Really?"

"Yes. Believe it or not, I am capable of telling the truth."


	113. Sirius Black

"Hello, Marisa," said a familiar drawl. She turned around with a delightful feeling of anticipation to see Draco and Leo standing together with the adult Malfoys.

"Hey, Draco," she replied. "How's it going? Did the Tornadoes beat the Wasps last week?"

"Thrashed them," replied Draco. "Two hundred and sixty to thirty. Shall we go and find a compartment?"

"Yup. Sounds good." She hadn't even acknowledged Leo's presence, nor he hers. They were playing games with each other again, refusing to admit how much they cared.

They dragged their trunks across the platform towards the nearest compartment. "Did you hear about Sirius Black?" asked Draco.

"Sirius…" said Marisa slowly, trying to work out where she'd heard the name before. "Oh – yes. He was on the Muggle news – an escaped convict, very dangerous. Is he – "

"A wizard," said Leo, "and a dangerous one at that. He was the one who betrayed the Potters to the Dark Lord, so they say. And he killed another wizard and fourteen Muggles. He must be mad by now after twelve years in Azkaban."

"And guess who he's after now?" asked Draco.

"Potter," said Marisa flatly. "Obviously."

"Correct," said Leo. "No prizes, though, given how obvious it is."

"That means he's coming to Hogwarts, then," Marisa concluded. "All we need after last year."

"They've put plenty of security measures in place," Draco said, "we don't need to worry."

Leo raised his eyebrows. "Honestly, I'm more worried about the security than I am about Black."

"Why?" asked Marisa.

"The Azkaban guards… " he began haltingly, "never mind. You don't want to know."

"Yes, I do," corrected Marisa. "I always want to know."

"Trust me – this time, you don't."

Somewhat unsettled but full of determined curiosity, Marisa stowed her trunk neatly on the shelf in her compartment and settled down.


	114. Dementors

It didn't take long before her curiosity was satisfied. They weren't far away from Hogwarts when the train suddenly jerked to a halt.

"What's going on?" asked Draco.

Marisa shrugged. "Mechanical fault?"

The light overhead flickered and went out, plunging them into darkness.

"Mechanical fault," repeated Marisa. "That's all. Nothing to worry about, is there?" She sounded certain, confident, but she was trying to convince herself as much as anyone else.

_"Lumos,"_ said Leo's voice, and the room lit up with a dim golden light, revealing Draco's frightened face and Leo's tense one.

"Good thinking," said Marisa, grabbing her wand. _"Lumos."_ The light seemed to flicker more than normal, but combined with Leo's it was just enough to see by. "What's the next move?"

As if someone had flicked a switch, the temperature in the room plummeted. Marisa felt herself shiver involuntarily.

"Dementors," spat Leo. "The Azkaban guards."

"What are they?" asked Marisa urgently.

Instead of answering, Leo reached out to grab her hand and gripped it tightly.

The compartment door swung slowly open, and in glided a tall figure in dark robes, figure completely masked by its hood. It drew a breath: a horrible rattling sound, the sound of a dying man.

The light from Marisa's wand died. The cold was altogether different now, the kind that clutched at her heart and made her feel she was drowning, made her feel none of this was real, that she was somewhere different. She bit her lip hard, hard enough to draw blood, in the hope that it would bring her back to reality.

It didn't work, but what happened next certainly had a strong effect: Leo leaned over her and kissed her passionately. And she couldn't think, her mind was such a tangle of fear and horror and joy that there was no room for anything else, she just clung to Leo like he was pulling her from the ocean.


	115. Chocolate and Evil

The lights had returned. The monster was gone, and so was the horror, replaced with a strange emptiness and beneath it a feeling of wonder at Leo's actions. She had to pretend, though, had to act as if she hadn't just gone through so much… whatever it had been.

"Well," she said brightly. "Glad that's over. All still here? Still alive?"

"Yup," replied Leo. "Although Dementors don't kill you as such, so…"

"Shut up," snapped Draco. "We're not going there. Marisa, are you okay?"

"Of course. I can cope with anything."

"Have some chocolate," said Leo. "It helps you recover faster." He held out a Frog to her; she took it and unwrapped it slowly with numb fingers.

"Cliodna," she said, glancing idly at the card. "Anyone need one of those?"

"Never mind the card. Eat the chocolate."

Marisa shoved the Frog into her mouth. It tasted deliciously warm and sweet, and she began to feel slightly better. "So. What are Dementors?"

"Is this really the time – "

"Yes," she insisted. "I might not want to know, but if we're going to have these things around our school for the next while I'll need to know."

Leo sighed. "Dementors are creatures of fear. They suck away all the joy and happiness and leave you with nothing but your worst memories."

"Sounds lovely. At least they won't affect you." She tried to force a laugh, but it didn't work, came out sounding flat and faked, which it was. "If they don't kill you… what do they do?"

"Suck out your soul."

Marisa waited for him to admit it was a joke, but he didn't. "Souls… exist? And they can be separated from the body? What happens to your body when your soul is sucked out?"

"You just… exist. You can't do anything, can't think, can't feel anything. You just go on existing, emptily, without being able to live. Most people don't survive long after the Dementor's Kiss – that's what they call it."

Marisa knew she'd be fascinated by the possibilities this implied when she'd recovered, she'd want to be able to experiment with souls and how they worked and what they were and whether they had physical substance and how the Dementors were able to extract them and exactly how a soulless person would act. But right now, she just wanted to lose herself, to not have to think.

"And they let these things guard a prison."

"It's mad. They should never have existed. Someone needs to destroy them. Maybe I'll do it."

Something deep inside Marisa wanted to think that he would destroy the Dementors not because he hated them on principle but because of what they'd done to her. The rest of her was laughing at the ridiculousness of that thought.

"Maybe I'll help you," she replied. "Though not until I've worked out if there's something they can be used for."

"…you're evil," said Leo flatly.

"Is that news to you?" asked Marisa. "It really shouldn't be by this point." She was feeling more and more herself by the moment. She'd be fine. Of course she would. She'd survived worse than Dementors, after all.


	116. Midnight

It was one o'clock in the morning, and the rowdy group of seventh-years had finally gone to bed, leaving Leo and Marisa alone together in the common room.

"So," said Marisa. "We need to talk."

"…about what happened on the train?"

"No, about how Professor Snape is planning to adopt Harry Potter," she replied, voice perfectly level.

Leo glared at her. "Stop being silly. Let's talk."

"Dementors," said Marisa. "Have you encountered them before?"

"Yes. When I was about six or seven the Malfoys decided it would be a good idea for me to visit my mother in Azkaban. Let's just say it wasn't."

"You were badly affected?"

Leo shook his head. "No, it was my mother. She wanted to hug me, but I couldn't – I didn't want to – I didn't even emknow /emher, she was just… just a skeleton dressed in rags and she was clinging to me as if I was the only thing keeping her alive, and I couldn't understand why because I didn't care about her. I still don't."

Marisa didn't quite know what to say. She had no sympathy for Leo's mother – why should she care about a woman stupid enough to be captured and imprisoned? – but at the same time she almost understood exactly how it felt to love a child who wouldn't love you back.

"I'd rather not go into detail about that," he said.

"Then tell me what the Dementors feel like for you? What did you feel when that one appeared?"

"It was so cold. As if I really couldn't feel anything happy. And… I remembered… that day when you were attacked by the Basilisk. How alone I was without you. How I barely got myself through those weeks. That's why I… kissed you like I did, because I needed to know you were there, you were real, no-one was taking you away from me."

She felt kind of flat hearing that. He'd done it for himself, not for her. "It was what I needed then, too," she said. "I didn't remember things, though. I just felt… so cold, so empty. So alone. And there was a dim sense that something terrible was happening, that I couldn't stop it."

They stared at each other in silence for a long moment. It was strange: despite the intimate secrets and feelings they'd shared, it felt like they were more distant than they'd ever been.

"Should probably sleep," said Marisa at last. "Classes tomorrow."

"Yes," Leo agreed. "Goodnight."

She wanted to kiss him, but something held her back. "Goodnight," she said, and stood up to leave.

"Wait – " said Leo.

She waited.

"I – nothing."

Disappointed, feeling slightly empty, Marisa went to bed./span/p


	117. First Morning Back

The next morning, the third-year Slytherins sat together, poring over their timetables for the day. Pansy and Millicent were the only two taking Divination, while the others began the day with a free period. They then had Charms with the Hufflepuffs, followed after lunch by Care of Magical Creatures with the Gryffindors (taught by Hagrid, of all people).

Leo, Marisa, Daphne and Tracey then had Ancient Runes as the day's final lesson, while those who weren't taking that class enjoyed their time off.

"Not bad," said Leo. "Not sure I really like the idea of Hagrid teaching, but Charms is always okay and I'm looking forward to Ancient Runes."

"You're looking forward to Ancient Runes," said Draco. "Are you mad?"

"No, I assure you, I am perfectly sane," said Leo, at the same moment as Marisa answered, "Yes, he most definitely is."

They briefly listed the different electives they'd chosen: Care of Magical Creatures had been chosen by everyone but Tracey, while only the four were taking Ancient Runes. Again the odd one out, Tracey was the only one taking Muggle Studies (none of the others were happy with this choice). Leo, Marisa, Daphne, Draco and Theo were all taking Arithmancy, while Vincent and Gregory were taking only the one elective.

"So," said Draco, "are you two lovebirds going to go and do stuff together?"

Pansy giggled; Marisa shot her a death glare.

"I don't know," she said. "I thought I might go and fly for a while, get myself back into some kind of shape ahead of Quidditch try-outs."

"Well, if you'd rather do that, I guess I can do other stuff," Leo added.

"Not going to come and watch me fly?"

"I have better things to do."

Marisa sighed, and didn't bother asking what those "better things" were. There was no point. It was strange, this sudden distance between them. It had never been there before, but suddenly they couldn't tell each other everything as they had before. She couldn't understand it.

"Okay," she said. "Draco, you want to join me?" She glanced at Leo and allowed herself to slowly smile.

"Sure," Draco replied lazily. "Why not?"

Leo said nothing, but Marisa could see his anger. He did still care about her, then. The Dementor hadn't sucked away his feelings. She'd make him admit it, sooner or later.


	118. Runes and Relationships

Ancient Runes, Marisa decided, was very enjoyable. Mostly because she was able to mess with Leo and Tracey (who, she strongly suspected, was only in the class because of her crush) by casually flirting with Terry Boot, thus making Leo jealous and Tracey jealous of Leo's jealousy.

The actual runes themselves were interesting: she wasn't obsessive about them the way Professor Babbling was, or even the way Leo was obsessive about anything intellectual, but it was quite fun to puzzle out the meanings of the runes, and she was excited about the potential magical uses of runes that they would be learning about eventually.

When they paired up to go over some basic translations, Leo and Marisa found themselves together. It went surprisingly well; despite the new tension between them, they were still able to work well together and finished the exercise before any other pair.

That done, however, they went their separate ways: Leo to write a Charms essay (he'd resolved to get his homework done as quickly as possible this year, to leave more time for other projects) and Marisa to a conversation with Daphne in a quiet corridor.

"Well?" asked Marisa.

"I…" Daphne blushed. "I…"

"Have a crush on someone? Come on, I've given you all the juicy details of me and Leo, you have to at least tell me the name."

"What's going on between you two, anyway? You seem different."

"Stop dodging the question. I'll tell you once you've told me who you have a crush on."

"Fine," said Daphne. "It's… Theo."

Marisa raised her eyebrows. "Theo?" she asked. "Of all the boys you could have chosen… why him?"

"He's kind of cute," muttered Daphne awkwardly, "and he's not as stupid as he acts sometimes."

"Well," said Marisa, "there's no accounting for taste. So, you want me to help you get together then?"

"I don't even know if he likes me," Daphne replied.

"I can find out. It'll cost you, of course."

"Of course," Daphne repeated with a laugh. "Sure, find out for me. Just don't let him know how I feel, and don't do anything that'll do lasting damage."

"I assure you, I am capable of subtlety," insisted Marisa.

"Anyway. Tell me about you and Leo."

"It's… complicated," said Marisa, before laughing. "I sound like every teenage girl with a crush ever, don't I? But yes. It's complicated. It all started when the Dementors came into our carriage on the Hogwarts Express…"

She briefly narrated the events that had transpired since then. "…and I can't understand why," she finished, "but it just feels so different to how it used to. And I don't know what to do."

Daphne hesitated. "Well, normally I could give you some good advice, but you and Leo don't really play by the normal rules, so it's a bit more difficult. But you just need to make some kind of gesture, something big and dramatic…"

"He'd probably just hex me in the face if I tried anything."

"And isn't that better than where you are now? A good duel then kiss and make up will bridge the distance no trouble."

"I like your thinking, Daphne," said Marisa, and an evil smile spread across her face.


	119. Boggarts

The next day was the third-year Slytherins' first Defence Against the Dark Arts lesson with new teacher Remus Lupin. He had decided to give them a practical lesson to begin with; Leo was pleased but slightly wary given the what had happened in their last practical Defence lesson.

But he decided to give the new professor the benefit of the doubt, for now at least: his robes were shabby but he appeared to be competent. Lupin lead the students to the staff room, where a cupboard was rattling suspiciously, and announced that it contained a Boggart.

The Slytherins being Slytherins, none of them exactly advertised their greatest fears, so all were fairly nervous about having them displayed to the class at large. Leo wondered vaguely what his greatest fear was, and heard a distant rattling sound in his mind. The rattle of a dying man. The rattle of a Dementor.

Dementors weren't funny. There was nothing funny about them.

Something popped into his mind: what was Marisa's greatest fear? What would the Boggart turn into, faced with her?

Finally, after what seemed like hours of questions and delaying, practicing the wand movement, explaining what Boggarts were, it was time to face it.

"Greengrass," said Lupin, "you can start."

Daphne got to her feet with an air of someone walking to her doom. Wand gripped tightly in one hand, she walked slowly forward, reached out one hand and opened the cupboard.

Immediately, a vast python uncoiled itself, hissing, and advanced on Daphne. "R-riddikulus," she stuttered. "Riddikulus!" There was a crack, and the python's length tied itself into a neat bow. Daphne laughed.

"Malfoy!"

Draco looked utterly terrified as he stepped forward and the python changed its form with another crack, into a tall man with deathly-white skin and glowing red eyes: the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Tracey screamed. Leo studied the Boggart-Voldemort curiously. It was smiling cruelly, wand twitching in its long fingers.

"Riddikulus," stuttered Draco. "No – no – Riddikulus!"

The Boggart tripped on the hem of his jet-black robe and fell flat on its face. Leo snorted.

"King!"

Marisa jumped to her feet, and the Boggart transformed into another man: this one tall and dark-haired, with a glitter in his eyes, a snow leopard by his side and a pistol in his hand, pointed directly at her heart.

He looked exactly like an older version of Leo.

"You disappoint me, Marisa," said the Boggart, as the real Leo watched in confused silence. Who was this other Leo? Was it some connection to those memories they'd shared? What was going on?

"I thought you were more than this. I thought you were special. Not like those other ordinary fools. I thought we could work together, you and I."

Marisa stood, frozen, eyes fixed on the snow leopard's paws.

"It appears I was wrong."

His finger curled around the trigger of his pistol, but Marisa was faster. In moments she had taken up a duelling stance. "Melofors!" she spat. "Slugulus Erecto!" She fired jinx after hex after curse at the Boggart, laughing wildly as she did so: a high, pealing sound, the sound of someone mad.

Leo jumped to his feet. He couldn't let this go on any longer. He had to draw the Boggart's attention, and he succeeded. It shifted instantly into a seven-foot-tall soul-sucking monster. Great.

What was worse, it brought on the same feeling as a Dementor: not to the same extent, but the emptiness, the despair, it was all still there, and the memories… it wasn't funny. Not at all. He felt something grip his hand, warm and soft. Marisa.

"Stop being stupid," she said. "Tracey. Get out here and face this Boggart."

Leo forced himself to turn and watch, and saw Tracey stumble forward, and the Boggart turn into a tiger, crouched close to the ground and ready to pounce.

Marisa gripped his arm and steered him back to his desk, and once he'd sat down swung her legs up to perch on it. "You okay?" she asked.

"Yup. You?"

"Fine."

He could think clearly again now the Boggart was no longer a Dementor, and he could see the glow in Marisa's eyes, the way her hair fell down her face, the soft smile on her lips. Her wild laugh of earlier echoed in his ears, and he realised afresh just how much he loved her.

"Want to talk?" she asked.

"Not now. Later."

He smiled.


	120. Remus Lupin

After the Boggart had finally been defeated by a triumphant Millicent and the students had been assigned an essay due on Friday, Professor Lupin asked Marisa to stay behind after class. She still wasn't quite herself, her mind a whirl of emotions and confusion, but she nodded and composed herself.

"What's going on between you and Asriel?" he asked.

"We're dating," replied Marisa, trying to work out what he wanted so she could give it to him and get out as soon as possible. "Have been since late May."

"You're a bit young to be dating, aren't you?"

"I'm thirteen," said Marisa, not letting her offence show. "I'll be fourteen in December. And we both realised we liked each other early on, so we didn't see the point in waiting around until we were older."

"And he hasn't – hasn't hurt you at all? Or frightened you?"

"No – no, of course not," said Marisa, trying not to laugh at the idea. "And if he did, I'd hex his face off."

"I don't doubt it," said Lupin with a wry smile. "But your Boggart – "

"An old nightmare of mine. I don't know where it comes from – I saw a snow leopard at a Muggle zoo when I was younger, and I remembered being frightened of it – and Leo likes snow leopards – and I guess my mind does weird things sometimes."

She had seen a snow leopard before, but she'd never been afraid of it. And she knew, really, that there was more to it than her mind doing weird things.

"If there's anything that's worrying you – anything I can help you with – "

"Actually," said Marisa, an idea popping into her head, "there is something I was wondering about. It's not related to what happened today, just something I've been wondering about. I think it was something I heard from Professor Binns, but he's not exactly the sort you can ask questions, is he?"

"He hasn't changed much since I was a student, then," laughed Lupin.

"No, I don't suppose ghosts do change much. Anyway, just out of curiosity: is reincarnation possible?"

Lupin blinked. "Well – I don't know – there are a few rumours out there, but nothing that's been proven, no evidence. I think they investigate these things in the Department of Mysteries, but I can't imagine they'd want to explain their findings to a teenage girl."

"Me neither," she said. "Anyway, thank you for your help. I might have a look in the library, see what I can find out." She got to her feet. "See you next lesson!"


	121. Discussing Visions

"So," said Leo.

"So what?" asked Marisa, smiling.

"So… why was your Boggart an alternate version of me?"

Marisa shrugged. "I have no clue. But it's the same thing as those… those dreams, those visions, we both keep having. I thought they'd gone away, but… it's something, isn't it? It's more than just a weird coincidence?"

Leo nodded. "Definitely."

"I asked Professor Lupin about whether… whether reincarnation is possible. He didn't know, but he said there'd been rumours and we could investigate in the library."

"You think these memories – whatever they are – are from past lives?" asked Leo. "That… seems odd." He wasn't altogether comfortable with the idea, but if it was the only explanation…

"Yup, it does. But this entire thing is odd, so in comparison it makes perfect sense."

"Fair point," admitted Leo. "Didn't we start writing down all these things…"

"In first year, yes. But they stopped for a while, and then we got a bit distracted by a certain snake."

"We should do it again. There's got to be some clues somewhere, if we know where to look," said Leo, trying to sound confident.

"Do we know where to look?" asked Marisa.

Leo was silent.

"I'll take that as a no, then. Dig through random books in the library and hope for the best, then?"

"I… suppose so," said Leo reluctantly.


End file.
